The Doctor and the Unsmiling Stars
by Jenthewarrior
Summary: Relive all of your favorite Doctor Who moments, and some breathtaking new adventures, as the TARDIS takes on new companions and old enemies, and the Doctor faces up to the demons of his childhood. Begins in season 2, will eventually feature the 10th, 11th, and 12th Doctor and all of his companions, starting with Rose. Mostly cannon with some new stories and characters.
1. The Doctor and the Ripple

**A/N: Hello and welcome to my Doctor Who story. For those of you who have read my writing before, you know that I like to keep my characters as true to form as possible, and this is no exception. Writing the Doctor has been a challenge and a pleasure, because he is one of my favorite characters. I hope you enjoy this story and the many twists and turns to come. If you like it, please leave me a review. Feel free to give suggestions and critiques. Allons-y!**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 1.**

 **The Doctor and the Ripple.**

Rose Tyler was sitting by, perhaps, the biggest swimming pool in the universe. Its stadiums stretched up into the sky, past the clouds and the floating orbs that emulated sunlight; rows and rows of blue and white seats, perfectly folded and numbered, rose up along symmetrical aisles; the water was its own ocean, with increasingly threatening waves and dark shadows the further one drifted into the deep end. It was absolutely colossal, and undoubtedly impressive. She could have honestly sat there all day relaxing in the shallows, basking in the warmth and building castles in the silvery sand. It was the truest form of paradise.

If anyone else had walked into this stadium, they would never believe it was tucked away inside a little blue police box – and that was certainly the thrilling part. Her best mate, owner of said little police box, loved spouting his favorite line. _It's bigger on the inside_. But it never stuck, not until people saw something like this. It still took her breath away sometimes.

Beyond the pool, he had a multi-level library, seemingly endless corridors and assorted rooms, and peculiar creatures skittering about at night, all hidden somewhere in this box. Sometimes the hallways changed. Sometimes random lights came on at night, like someone was walking through a junction when there was no one to be seen. It was a living, feeling creature they were relaxing inside of, encompassing all of time and space and doing it with perfect majesty.

But the box, properly called the TARDIS, was not the most incredible thing she had come to know in the past year or so. It was the man behind it, her best mate, the Doctor himself.

He was the most peculiar and wonderful man she had ever known.

He was there now, spread dramatically by the edge of the pool, filling up a lounge chair, wearing a pinstriped suit and his duster like he was most certainly not at any sort of beach. But he was. He was sipping a drink from a coconut, occasionally lifting his shades to scan the water. In this warm light he managed to glow a little more than usual. He had that brown hair all poofed up – something she had tried to catch him doing on multiple occasions.

The Doctor was usually bubbly, an irrepressible ball of light, but their recent run-in with a parallel universe left him with a pinched brow. Rose was still feeling it, too, but somehow it meant more to him. He was letting himself get lost in what could have been.

Rose had already done her crying, hugged her mum, and spent a few days at home to make sure nothing terrible would happen to her. But the Doctor, when he chose not to share what he was feeling with her, had no one else to talk to. As far as she knew, she was his only friend. Whatever went on in his head was sealed away until he decided it should come out.

Something was wrong. She knew it.

He was uncharacteristically quiet today – no humming, no spontaneous facts about swimming pools, no explanation of the clouds hovering high above. He loved to show off how smart he was. He was just living in his head today, thinking serious thoughts.

"Doctor?"

Rose came to the edge of the shallows, leaning her arms on the soft side of the pool. Her voice echoed harshly all around them. The Doctor gave her a raised eyebrow to show that he heard her, but he said nothing.

"Do you have sharks in this pool?"

Giving him a nonsense question usually made him smile.

Now he just drew his shades up, and pursed his lips, and shrugged. "Could have. Might have. Probably have. I have a big old squid named Roy, but he's harmless. Or it might be a 'she.' I never checked. Squids are rather… ambiguous."

Rose swam right to the stairs and came out. "You might have told me that before I got in."

Finally, he smiled. "Semantics."

"Don't think you're using that right." Rose returned the smile, glad to have him talking again. The TARDIS was eerie when the Doctor was quiet. She laid in the chair beside him, nuzzling the warm plastic. "Can I have one of those orbs in my room?"

The Doctor turned on his side, popped his glasses off, and tossed them into the water. "Why was I wearing those? Seems arbitrary without sunlight. And no, you'd burn up to a crisp if you were that close. They emulate the sun, they're not space heaters."

Rose stared up at them through the clouds. "Rather burn up than get eaten by a squid."

He grinned. "Roy only eats mutant krill. Besides, I wasn't going to let anything gobble you up in there. I was watching."

"Were you? From here it looked like you were being all broody."

Rose surveyed him for a moment, getting caught up in those playful eyes of his. He changed so quickly from being deep in thought to showing off his childish side. When she had first met him, it seemed, for a time, all there was inside was darkness, with little glimmers of youthful light – and now it was the opposite. But the glimmers of darkness in him were much more profound.

She usually let it go, let it fade away, but after everything that had happened in the other world, she had to ask. "What were you thinking about, anyway?"

"Little tiny people."

He seemed honest enough.

Rose laughed. "You could be more specific."

"I could. And I will." He scooted closer, leaning in importantly. "I found a planet once with a whole race of tiny little people – no bigger than a foot high each – who lived on the coast, on beaches with black sand."

"You're makin' that up."

"I am not!" His flashed a broad, beautiful grin. "I forgot where I found them, though, so I was thinking about it. I might have it. I see you doubting me, but listen, they make these tiny little drinks – out of tiny little coconuts – that taste divine. Like if satin were served liquid with a little paper umbrella. You have to have thirty or forty to really get the taste, but you can't miss it. Oh, and live music, with a tiny little saxophone and tiny little sunglasses on tiny little blind man. I swear by it, Rose, that tiny man is a genius!"

Rose nodded along, glad he had his spark back, and also weary of his description. It sounded strange, even for the two of them. In the past they had dealt with werewolves and ghosts and Daleks, and not one of those adventures started on purpose.

Was she really ready to jump back into the frying pan?

She answered him with faux caution, because the smile on his face had already tempted her. He had to know by now she would follow him anywhere.

"It sounds… farfetched."

"Right?"

"I suppose that _is_ our style."

"Besides, what could possibly go wrong on a beautiful beach with little tiny people and coconut drinks? Oh, no, shouldn't have said that. Never say that. Just for future reference. Jinxes _are_ real. Anyway, there's no chance with this, I swear. Not even a little tiny one."

Sometimes she wondered if he planned their excursions specifically to run into trouble. It was nice to have the promise of peace for once. Just her and the Doctor, relaxing on a beach with tiny little people. "So the little tiny people are completely safe?"

"Certified."

"And no one will spike our drinks, or try and turn us into robots?"

"That is correct."

Rose tilted her head back and forth, pretending to sort out her choices. The Doctor already knew her answers – she could see it in those big bright eyes – but he played the waiting game, and smiled, tilting his head with her and making her laugh. He must have known how cute he was, because no one ever really said no to him.

When she nodded, he perked up and held out his hand. "Come on, then."

Rose reached out to him.

Before their hands touched, and before the smiles had even gone from their faces, the whole room lurched, the walls turned sideways, and water billowed around her.

She was in the pool.

But not just in the pool.

She was in the deep end, where shadows prevailed. Her eyes popped open and she saw the surface sinking further and further away from her, like she was weighted with led, like the whole ship was upside down, like someone had pulled the drain and she had gotten caught in the current.

It was gone in a blink. Just a little light up above, snuffed out.

Bubbles surged against her neck, through her sleeve, over her nose.

Rose hit the bottom.

The pressure was impossible. It was like someone had taken hold of her head with both hands, and they were pressing her skull as hard as they could. It was cold, and dark, and it was impossible to see anything save a parade of colors dancing before her eyes.

A light popped on beside her.

Rose twisted violently, mashing her nose into it, trying to phase through it to safety. It was only a pool light, reacting to her presence. It showed her an image of her terrified eyes, and the motion of something swimming behind her.

She turned back, kicking off, putting all of her strength into finding the surface. Her time was running out. Her lungs burned. Inside her chest there was a timer slowly ticking away, counting down the moment when her mouth would open, and she would inhale the water, and lose this unexpected battle for survival.

Something brushed her bare legs.

Rose lurched away, but the water barely gave. She was weak. Her muscles were giving up on her. With no means of escape, she drifted, hoping she was rising, hoping the Doctor was up above, and he would get to her before whatever was in the water with her.

Limbs, gangly and slimy, started winding around her arms.

The squid. A monstrous squid. It had found her in its domain.

When it had the right grip to rip her down into the depths, into whatever abyss waited once the last of her breath ran out, it did just the opposite. Rose rocketed toward the surface. She passed through a slew of bubbles and got a whole breath of air before the choppy water sent her tumbling.

She also got a glimpse at the chaos in the TARDIS.

It was like there was a hurricane going on indoors. The room rocked back and forth, teetering like it had lost all sense of balance. Chairs and tables bobbed around in the violent water, which poured over the sides, up the walls and the stands, and then back into the pool. Up above the fake sky had gone dark. The lights flickered. The stadium seats were tumbling down and water jumped between them like a fountain.

The pool had no edges, but she started swimming anyway, hoping to find a way out of the churning water. Random bits of furniture bobbed in her path. A chair whacked her in the back. Her knees struck the edge and her panic was renewed. Just as she found her footing, a wave surged up behind her and rolled her into a pile of chairs like a bowling ball.

The Doctor appeared and grabbed her hand. "We have to get out of here!"

His voice was barely audible above the sloshing water.

It was the same story in the hall. Everything heaved back and forth. Water rushed from one side to the other, knocking Rose off her feet. She ended up on the floor, sliding around, while the Doctor slammed the pool doors shut. Just as they closed, the hall twisted violently. Rose held onto a light fixture, keeping herself from being thrown into the ceiling, and the Doctor dangled from the doorknobs. Water sprinkled past her like rain, gathered briefly in one corner, and then sloshed back to the ground as the hallway righted itself.

It remained that way for a precious second. The Doctor grabbed her hand, and they started running, sometimes wading. He had to shout to be heard.

"You alright?"

Rose stayed close to him, and away from the doors. Inside every room furniture was sliding around, beating against the walls, groaning eerily. "What's happening?"

"I don't know!"

"Are we crashing?"

The Doctor looked offended at the idea. "The TARDIS doesn't _crash_!"

As soon as those words were out, his eyes grew wider. Rose got a jolt. It had crashed once, and almost as severely as this, when they landed in the other universe. Shortly after that, the whole thing just died, and they were almost stranded there forever.

The Doctor shook himself. "Go! Get to the control room!"

"I'm in my bathing suit!"

He rolled his eyes. "Fine! Stop by _your_ room!"

"Are you coming with me?"

He groaned. "Come on! Make it quick!"

It was a hard journey to her room, but, gradually, the TARDIS began to settle down. It still lurched every minute or so, throwing her onto her bed and making the Doctor _thunk_ into something in the hallway, but Rose got into the pattern of it and learned when to grab onto something. When she had changed, the Doctor grabbed her hand again, and they waited out another shift.

Rose was dangling when she asked, "Why didn't you get thrown into the water?"

Her question, at this time, in this panic, was silly, but the two of them were a bit more accustomed to danger than others.

"My chair was bolted down!"

"Why aren't _all of them_ bolted down?"

The hall settled and they ended up on their knees, clinging to the railing. He jumped up, dragging her along. "Come on. We can discuss furniture policy later!"

"I think your squid saved me!" she added.

"Oh, _Roy_? Good boy! I'll give him a treat if we survive!"

The control room was normally her favorite place to pass the time, watching the Doctor tinker with the circular console, or climb around in the rafters only to find something he had left there centuries ago, but today it was the worst place in the TARDIS. It was loud. It was panicking. Everything whirred and beeped, twirled and squealed, sparked and smoked. It went well beyond its usual drama, when the Doctor would hit it with a mallet and order it to behave – it was responding catastrophically to something.

The Doctor ran up to it like it was his child and it had skinned its knee. He tried to touch the console and it blew steam at him. Rose clung to the seats – old, ratty things, sort of like car seats, mounted near the rails – and watched the lightshow on the domed ceiling. She had never seen some of them before. Were they under attack? Was the TARDIS dying on them?

Her questions were answered when the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He always seemed to point it at things and get answers from the buzzing sound it produced. He scanned different parts of the console. "We're being pulled through space and time! Literally, pulled! Something has grabbed onto the TARDIS and its just ripping us toward it. But that's impossible!"

Rose had to shut her eyes as the room heaved again. She was feeling sick.

The Doctor shouted. "You can't just… just… _hack_ the time vortex like that! It risks everything! It risks unwinding the very fabric of time! It tears holes in the universe!"

"Make it stop!"

"I can't! Hang on!"

Rose opened her eyes and found him holding onto the console, staring at his little monitor, still shaking his head like it could see his disapproval.

"How are you doing that?" he demanded of it.

Rose sunk down to the ground, holding onto the base of the chairs. She tried to focus on the Doctor to stop the room from spinning. "Doctor!"

He twisted the monitor, his voice taking on a worried edge. Something was terribly wrong. "We're being pulled toward Earth, 2558. Very close to the Orion War. Close to a lot of wars. This was the age when human expansion was stunted. I can't be here. We have to go." He banged on the console, raising his voice above the sirens. "We have to leave!"

It stopped.

Suddenly, eerily, like the entire universe had finally relaxed after a terrible quake, everything stopped. The lights went out. The sounds cut off. Rose barely heard a metal ping over the sound of her heart racing. It was silent, and cold, and dark, and the only thing she could really see was the Doctor, standing at the console and looking completely dumbfounded. He had the same grief in him as when they landed in the other universe. He feared for his TARDIS, for the last piece of his home world. It seemed to have heaved and died.

He spoke lowly. "Rose… the only other time I've seen it do this is when we landed in the other universe. If we… I'm not sure we can make it back this time."

Rose staggered upright, one hand on her stomach to settle it. "You said we were on Earth."

"But this doesn't happen on Earth." He ran his fingers over one of the handles, appearing mystified. She hated to see him so confused. He was the Doctor. He was supposed to know everything. "No, no. This is something else."

Rose went to the doors, since the Doctor seemed incapable of taking a step. He watched her with those dark, serious eyes, like he was waiting for the world to implode. She ran her fingers over the wood, now cold to the touch, and tipped them open.

Snow fluttered inside. Rose looked back at the Doctor to confirm he was seeing the same thing she was – a snow-covered forest with tall, black trees.

She was suddenly regretting her decision to wear her 'sassy' pink shorts.

The Doctor ventured closer, frowning.

"Is it… our Earth?" Rose asked.

"It appears so." The Doctor looked at the screen again, but it was blank. He swallowed. "We should use caution. Nothing hits the TARDIS like that. _Nothing_."

Rose stepped outside, enjoying the crunch of snow underfoot. It had been a while since she heard it. It seemed very much like Earth – beautiful and tranquil, a cascade of white, a harsh contrast of black, a beautiful sky up above, and little snowflakes dancing around her cheeks. It was nothing like the terror they had experienced in the TARDIS. What in the world had caused that?

"Does this look alright to you?" Rose turned, but found herself looking at more trees. Right where the TARDIS had been, there was a square impression in the snow. Her heart sank. "Doctor?"

Silence.

He was gone.

Rose reached out and touched the empty air. It was impossible. She had been traveling with him for a long time and the TARDIS was incapable of just disappearing. It wheezed, the light on top glowed, and it faded slowly from view. It never just vanished.

"Doctor?"

She waited. She stood there for several minutes.

Nothing happened. Not even a whisper. The forest was unnaturally still, save the constant snow. But as she stood there she noticed that the snow was not gathering. Her coat was still dry. It had no ice on it, no little pile of snowflakes.

And that spot where the TARDIS had been, where the square imprint in the snow had been, was just snow now. No imprint. It was like it was never there.

It was really gone. Not just disappeared, but _gone_.

She was really alone.

Rose zipped her jacket all the way up and pulled her hood tight, trying to trap the warmth in. She looked all around herself, trying to catch a glimpse of a blue box among the trees, but the forest went on and on, the branches uniform overhead, the ground free of footprints, save her own. It was terribly quiet to be 2558. Something was wrong. She could sense it.

She started walking, choosing a direction and keeping at it. She reasoned that there had to be something other than a snowy forest on this planet. It was much more than that in the time she came from – it must have grown. Where were the hovering cars? Where were the skyscrapers? Where were the robot dogs? She expected so much more, and all she got was an endless stream of trees, and the same old lumps of snow, and the same sky.

" _Rose_?"

She heard him calling for her, but it was like an echo, like he was on the other side of a veil of water. She twisted, staring the way she had come. His voice came from all sides, but that seemed the most logical place to look for him.

Her footprints were gone.

Rose looked down, at where she had only been standing a moment ago, and the snow was perfectly undisturbed. Only where she stood, right beneath her feet, looked trampled. Everywhere she turned the snow was perfect. It gave her a chill worse than the cold could.

"Okay, okay. Haunted forest. I must be dreaming." Rose swallowed the frozen lump in her throat and carried on the way she had been going. There was a clearing up ahead.

She wanted to go back and check to see if the Doctor had returned, but the clearing caught her attention. It was brighter up there. She got to the edge of the tree line and turned back to check if her footprints were still there – they were gone again – and then ventured out into the open.

In the middle of the meadow, her eyes caught on a lump of snow.

It was a toddler, just lying there.

Rose ran to the motionless boy, hardly understanding what she was seeing.

He was in an indent, in the middle of a perfectly untouched patch of snow. It was like he had fallen out of the sky. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and so frigid that at first, and in horror, she thought he was dead. But his chest rose and fell with steady breaths, and when she touched him, he stirred, and his eyes opened. He looked right at her.

His lip trembled and he held his arms out for her.

Rose picked him out of the snow, holding him flat against her chest and sharing her warmth. She bundled him into her coat, looking around instinctually for someone to claim him.

But she was alone.

"Okay. Hey. Hi." She got a good look at the boy, deciding he was definitely human, and no more than a year old. "Hello there. My name is Rose. Can you tell me your name?"

He stared at her. His fist was closed so tightly around her jacket that his knuckles were white.

"Okay then. That's alright." Rose stood, clutching the baby tightly. She turned around and around, conflicted, realizing her footprints were gone and she didn't know where she had come from. All the trees looked the same. It was a uniform pattern all around her.

Rose decided to stay there. She sat where the boy had been, holding him securely against her, and looked around for hours. It wasn't tiring. She didn't get hungry, or thirsty. She sat there, and her mind raced, and the snow fell all around them without ever landing. She knew the Doctor would come for her, but it had to be soon, or both of them would freeze.


	2. Who Are You?

**Chapter 2.**

 **Who Are You?**

Rose was gone.

He had been looking at her one moment as she stood just outside of the TARDIS, and he could have sworn she was turning, about to say something to him, and then she was gone. Without a sound, or a whisper, or a little shout of fear, she was gone.

It could have been the worst thing about this strange event.

He really wished it was.

The Doctor stepped into the snow and knew without a doubt that something awful was happening. He knew it deep down in his soul. It was chaos.

It all started with the snow. It felt like normal snow, smelled like normal snow, and crunched like normal snow. It seemed to be made of liquid, frozen like normal in the atmosphere and drifting down over him, gathering up in little piles on his suit. But the ground beneath his feet, way down beneath his shoes, felt warm, like summer had only just gone. It should have been frozen.

Beyond that was the forest. It had normal looking trees with hardy, evergreen pine needles, and up above the sky was a tranquil shade of blue, rather minute. Everything was tranquil and to a human it might have seemed perfectly average, but this was not the Earth he knew.

Everything was occurring to him at once as he wandered around the TARDIS, calling for his companion and listening to the strange echo of his own voice. He lingered on the trees, tapping them, wondering about the irritated grumbles from within. Not only did the Earth have very few real trees in 2558, but it had even less little rodents who lived in them. It had maybe four or five major forests, preserved, but soaked through with the pollution of the air.

It was not supposed to be so wild.

"You are a very peculiar forest," he said, turning in a circle and finding no sign of planes or smoke in the air. "Peculiar, without question, but _where_? _Where_ is this? Where are all the _people_? Scanner said North America, but even in its most remote regions… no. Humans are supposed to be united in one great nation, standing against the Cybermen with your shoddy little spaceships. What in the world happened here?"

The Doctor turned to find that he was talking to no one. Usually Rose was there to listen to his ramblings about the human race. It gave him pause, but he went on anyway.

"I mean, sure, you took a big hit recently, but 2558, no matter being a depression, was a time of growth for most of the world. You had your little neighborhoods, color-coded, sprawling out from the cities, and factories spewing clean smoke, and little shops on every corner. I love those."

He stopped by a rock, digging it out of the snow and giving it a lick. It tasted wrong. He tossed it aside and went back to his TARDIS, lingering in the doorway and looking out at the forest.

"No… no. This is all wrong. Some of the greatest heroes of the war were born and raised in this century, not with forests and snow, but with machines, crushing poverty, and extraordinary wealth. It was terrible sometimes, but it had to happen. No forests. No snow. No salty rocks."

The Doctor retreated inside, slamming the doors shut and trying to get his console to work. It was silent, like it had been in the other universe, only this time there was no little light to give him hope. He felt better knowing they had not slipped through time again – he was certain this was the right universe. It _felt_ right. But the timeline was off by about a hundred years.

Perhaps more disturbing than this stunted timeline was the way they had arrived. He hovered around his console trying to find answers in the wrecked room. Nothing hit his TARDIS like that. Nothing dragged him down to the surface like that.

Something extremely powerful had wanted them here.

Something had grabbed them and yanked them down onto this planet, at this time.

But _why_?

And what had happened to Rose?

And why had the TARDIS died the moment they landed?

It was frustrating. He found himself slamming doors as he walked down the corridors, looking for a tool he had not used in a long time. It was in the library, where nearly every book had been thrown from the shelves and littered the floor. It was a horrible affront to the knowledge within them, but he had to leave them like that. He had a horrible ticking clock in his head and he felt something coming – whatever was wrong with Earth was coming to a head very soon.

His little remote – a black box with a circular dial in the center – had a very small sliver of the time stream buried within it. It was a device from Gallifrey, designed for a very specific use. He had put it down one day before the Time War, and never picked it up again.

He stepped outside and the arrow within the dial began to spin. It sampled the air, sampled the fabric of the universe, and detected the anomalies. As he had suspected, it was finding them everywhere. Every tree that should not have grown; every piece of sky that should have been dull and gray; every spec of snow that should not be falling; every salty space rock that never should have made it through the atmosphere. It sorted through them from the smallest to the largest, focusing on the worst offenders until it came to the source.

It stopped, pointing straight west, humming deep within its core.

The Doctor let the remote guide him, going through the possibilities in his head. He moved rapidly through long lists of potential offenders, from the creature who had invaded Satellite 5 to the slew of aliens who would love to harness humanity for their own purposes. And he also hoped for the best possible solution – that another time traveler had made a mistake and crushed a butterfly a hundred years in the past, causing a ripple that offset the whole planet.

However unlikely, he wished for that answer just this one time.

He also thought of Rose. Had she been folded into this timeline, or sent back to the real one? Was she standing in the middle of a battleground, defenseless and afraid, or was she transported somewhere else on the corrupted Earth? She would certainly be rattled after this, so close to almost losing everything in the parallel reality.

When he had been walking for at least ten minutes – and it felt like his feet were frozen to the soles of his shoes – the remote began to shake. It made another buzzing sound, one he had never heard. He gave it a few whacks and it vibrated in his palm, pointing furiously straight ahead. He was staring at it so intently that he forgot to look up.

He ran straight into the side of a rock.

The Doctor dropped into the snow, staring at a tall, sparkling black rock parked in the middle of a clearing. It was too big to see around, and too tall to reasonably miss, but it was terribly out of place. It looked otherworldly. It _smelled_ otherworldly.

He got up, indignant, and patted its side. "Who puts a rock in the middle of the forest?"

From the other side of the rock, someone answered, "Good question."

The Doctor scrambled to his feet and circled the rock, finding a girl standing on the other side of it. She had a pen in her mouth, a clipboard under her arm, and an amused smile on her face as soon as she got a look at him. She was wearing a plush snowsuit and goggles – far more prepared for an expedition into the snowy forest than he was.

His remote was still buzzing, and when he held it up to her, it smoked and fizzled out. He tossed it aside, satisfied that the sliver of time stream had abandoned it.

And it was because of this girl. It was astounding.

"You…" he murmured, getting a little closer to take another look at her. "You are _not_ supposed to be here. How did you do that?"

She pulled her goggles up and cocked an eyebrow, amused.

The Doctor caught his breath. Her eyes were a very impossible shade of green for a human, practically glowing, even at this distance. It was a vibrant color, perfectly abnormal.

She was alien.

His interest was piqued. Humanity was fond of aliens in this age, using them as allies and slaves, battling them and joining in on the intergalactic warfare that had plague the universe since its inception. He knew of thousands of different species, and had encountered quite a lot of them in one adventure or another, but there were billions upon billions out there. He was sure he had never seen eyes like hers before, on an otherwise human-looking girl.

It begged more questions. Was she a time traveler? Had she caused the problems on this planet? Why was she being pointed to as the strongest anomaly?

She spoke before he had time to formulate a long line of questions. "Oh? You know, people keep telling me that, but I just keep coming back." She patted the side of the rock. "I see you met my friend here, B-126-U. Hard, isn't it?"

The Doctor was distracted by that name. "Uh, yeah. As far as rocks go, I suppose. What does that mean? Some kind of sorting system?"

"Black, number one hundred and twenty-six, upright." She noted something on her clipboard. "If you ever looked up from that little thing you have there, you would notice that there are hundreds of these rocks, in all different colors, scattered throughout the forest."

The Doctor turned, finding a few of them with a casual glance. Space junk that should have never made it through the barriers. "Why do you care?"

She bounced a little on her heels. "Because they came from outer space! But they're not mentioned in any of the public records."

"Who are you?"

"You hit that rock pretty hard." She nodded, glancing around, removing one of her gloves, and then coming to shake his hand. "Grace Shaw. I suppose you have a name?"

He took her hand, and noted a normal, human feel to her skin. It was warm, perfusing correctly, and certainly not part of a flesh-suit designed to hide her species. She was a standard humanoid. But as the simple shake ended, he got another sense from her – something that the alien in him picked up. It was hard to read, hard to understand, even for him. And that was saying something. He had vast stores of knowledge in his head, but nothing to place this sensation.

"Uh, I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor."

"Rich name for someone who tries to break rocks with his face."

"I was looking for someone – a blonde woman named Rose. Have you seen her?"

"Nope. No blonde women out here. Just me. And you, apparently. Isn't it strange, though, about the record? No record of hundreds of similar rocks just falling right out of the sky, landing in all kinds of places all around the city. Seems important. But they'd have you believe we never get messages from outer space, like not just the world, but the whole universe has forgotten about us."

The Doctor tried to place her words, but they didn't match the timeline. He knew of no significant meteor storms on Earth at this time, and, again, the forest was just as out of place as the meteors. So was the girl. His remote had pointed at her as it fizzled and died. She was an anomaly.

"What do you mean-?"

"Forget the rocks." Grace circled him, grabbing one of his shoulders and hovering over it. "Does anything else strike you as strange? I dunno, like a man wandering in the woods with no snowsuit, all dressed up like he's going to a period party? Who are _you_?"

"I just-"

"Yeah, yeah. Mysterious friend. I heard you. But the thing is, the city has sensors in these woods. They pick up activity, report it back, send people to investigate. They got tired of coming out for me, but now that there's two of us… Haven't got much time left."

"Why do they care who's in the forest?"

"Is that really what you want to ask?"

"Yes."

"Who were you looking for, again?"

His curiosity grew. Not only did this place have a forest that wasn't meant to be there, but this girl made it sound like she lived in an isolated city. Someone had made them think the world, even the universe, had forgotten about them. He needed answers, but this girl was clever. She wasn't giving away more than she wanted him to know. She was dancing around his questions and deciding how to prod him for more about himself.

He decided to answer honestly. "Rose. Blonde. Around your age. I think she might be lost out here somewhere."

"She _might_ be lost?"

She was curious, too, and obviously trying to figure something out.

He answered carefully. "She _is_ lost, but maybe not here."

"Do you work for the city?"

"What city? I'm not with any cities."

"Johnston Dome."

" _Dome_?"

 _Domes_. Cities of the future. His home world, Gallifrey, had them, but the technology that generated them was used for defense. It was not to isolate, but to protect, to insulate against attacks. On other planets he had seen much worse uses – they were disease-ridden rattraps designed for societies with little value for freedom or autonomy. Domes were like breeding farms for the human race, created in isolated areas in the later centuries to hide from the darkness outside, and to foster the darkness inside. It was too early for them to create the inert, defensive domes of his homeland, so his mind went straight to the worst of them – the hard dome, the hamster ball.

Grace watched him thoughtfully, registering his changing emotions, the direction of his thoughts, with eerie focus. She motioned to the trees. "Even if they ignore you, and don't send anyone – which I doubt – in a few hours the ice will kill you _and_ her. I have a snowmobile. We can look for her. But you have to tell me something first."

Her motives were about to be clear. "What?"

"Are you an alien?"

He frowned. "Er, yes."

She gave an excited bounce, and the green in her eyes intensified. "Yes! I knew it! I knew there were aliens out here!" Grace stepped closer, putting her hands on his shoulders and looking hard at his face. "You look so human. Handsome. Kind of smug."

"I think the real question is, why do you look so surprised?"

Grace replaced her goggles, and motioned for him to follow, heading back around the rock. "What do you mean? Why shouldn't I be surprised to find an alien?"

"Well, you lot have already had contact for 500 years."

"Duh." Grace stopped beside a very nice snowmobile, which was white, and barely visible against the snow. She threw her hood back and donned a helmet, patting the seat behind her. "Aliens have been banned for the last sixty years."

" _Banned_? What do you mean, 'banned?'"

"Get on."

The Doctor joined her despite his misgivings. He poured over this new information, and what he knew about this strange, misplaced alien girl. Did she even know she was not human? Was she excited at meeting her first alien, or at finally meeting _another_ one? She seemed to want something from him, more than just encountering him in the first place. She was calculating. She was clever.

But she was his only ally at the moment.

He tried to speak over the engine, "What did you mean-?"

"You did come from space, right?"

"Yes, I did. But-"

"So if this works out, I can come with you, right?"

"If what works-?"

Grace stopped the vehicle so suddenly that, if he had been holding on any looser, he would have been thrown into the snow. She had followed his footprints all the way back to the TARDIS, and she hopped off to take a look at it, circling the blue box with her hand running along the side. She looked between him and the TARDIS, keeping her questions to herself, but appearing very curious. For any other person he would have explained it and invited them inside, happy to have their help, but this girl gave him a sinister impression. What did she really want? How much did she know?

"Explain what happened." Grace stopped beside the blue box, leaning on it, perhaps testing how sturdy it was. Everything she did seemed to have an ulterior motive.

The Doctor pointed out his own footprints in the snow, right in front of the doors. "She was standing right there, and then she was gone. Just like that. Not a sound. No trace of her. Have you seen something like that before?"

Grace nodded to herself, noting something on her clipboard. "Yes." She removed her goggles again, and while she was standing next to the TARDIS, with its blue panels, the green in her eyes suddenly became much paler. She seemed a little more human, a little more vulnerable. "What did you mean when you said I wasn't supposed to be here?"

He stepped closer to get a better looked at her eyes. "That little device I had tells me when there's something wrong with the timeline, and it pointed right at you."

The Doctor got a prolonged look at those eyes as she stared at him. They were a color he could not place, but they gave him a warm feeling. It was like he had seen it in another life. Or had he seen _her_ in another life? She seemed otherwise human – short, Rose's age, with spikey brown hair, a bit of a mischievous expression, a strike of giddiness about her.

What was giving him this strange impression?

Grace stirred at last, replacing her goggles and removing his view of her eyes. It was almost on purpose. Was she trying to prompt him to say something about it? She hopped back on her snowmobile and patted the seat again. "Get on. I want to show you something."

The Doctor had the feeling that none of his questions were going to be answered. It was like she had an aversion to admitting to anything, ever. If he asked her what her favorite color was, she would probably counter by demanding to know how many pockets his trousers had.

She took him straight back to the rock, did a circle around it, and stopped where she had been standing when he first saw her. "I want you to stand right here, and focus on this. Focus on this rock. B-126-U is a very special rock. I come to see it every day."

The Doctor joined her, standing back and off to the side a little.

Grace grabbed his hand and pulled him closer, smiling, finding enthusiasm in all of her suspicion. "It's okay. It's just a rock. It doesn't bite."

"Why come and see it every day?"

"It shows you where they've all gone."

The Doctor didn't have time to ask for clarification – she probably would have evaded the question anyway. Just as little fractals of ice began to creep over the rock, and as he began to feel a deep, unsettling chill in his core, the rock disappeared.

Instead, there was a meadow. Sitting in the center, staring around herself with wide, scared, lost eyes, and clutching a little boy who was as pale as the snow all around them, was a familiar face.

Her name came out as a whisper. It was the sound of heartache.

"Rose…"

He knew what he was looking at, and that he could not touch her, no matter how much he hoped to, but he reached out anyway. His hand struck the now invisible rock and he withdrew, not feeling the pain through his longing. She looked so afraid. All he wanted to do was wrap her up in a hug and tell her it was going to be alright.

Grace took a deep breath, appearing relieved. "She found him. She found Sebastian."

The Doctor glanced at her, but his eyes rebounded to Rose. "What?"

"Do you know what this is?" She stared at him with probing eyes, completely intent.

"It looks like a different timeline – an alternate timeline."

He was a master of time. He felt the universe turning inside his own body. He moved, and felt the tendrils of a million billion possibilities moving with him every second of every day. In this image, he felt the tension. It was the sensation of two realities pulling away from each other when all they wanted to do was snap back together. It was impossible to touch the other side, impossible to get out of it without correcting whatever had been tampered with in the first place.

It was just a fraction of what was to come. Both timelines were inherently wrong. Both of them were a strain on the universe. Both of them were doomed, and it would not be long now.

Grace must have sensed his dread. She took his hand again, squeezing it, and provided a bit of warmth. "What does that _mean_?"

The Doctor shook himself. Now was not the time to surrender to the dread. "Uh, a ripple. Something is wrong with this timeline – with both of them. And it's been brewing for a while. No, no… this doesn't happen overnight. Something like this takes years… a century. This is… this is a timeline that never should have happened. It's going to keep fracturing like this. It's trying to correct itself with no sense of where it was meant to be headed."

Grace nodded along with what he said. "Just a week ago it was summer." She released his hand and stepped forward, right up against the invisible rock. She gazed at the baby. "Sebastian is my brother. He went missing yesterday. He was at the house and he just disappeared. I came out here right before the icing and there he was, lying in the snow."

She stood up, backing away as the ripple ended. Suddenly they were standing in front of a solid black rock, and Rose and the baby were gone. Grace stared into it like she could still see her brother.

"Rose has him. He's in good hands." The Doctor put his hand on her shoulder. His mind switched tracks and he realized he had left the most important questions unanswered. "So you come out here and count the rocks? You must have started before he went missing, to get to number one hundred and twenty-six, just for the black ones. Why?"

Grace seemed to want to answer, but she held back. She went to the snowmobile instead, patting the seat behind her once more. Without a second thought, she tossed her clipboard into the snow. "You said something went wrong. We need to find out _what_ so we can get them back. Get on."

She was being remarkably calm about this, and she didn't question his talk of the timelines. It was worrying. Had she met a time traveler before? Perhaps that was the route of these problems. The Doctor joined her on the snowmobile, his mind racing with the possibilities, and he tried to keep his expressions neutral. If she was hiding something from him, he would retain whatever he could for himself. He had a bad feeling about her and he might need the advantage later.

"We need to go over the public records and find out whatever we can about a hundred years ago!" Grace spoke over her shoulder while she drove. "How do you feel about breaking and entering?"

"I dabble."

"Good!"

The Doctor was starting to doubt what he had gotten himself into. "Are you even legally allowed to drive this? How old are you?"

"Nineteen! I'm old enough to drive it, but not legally, since I stole it!"

Her response made him smile, but that smile faded quickly. She was only nineteen, but the remote had pointed her out as an anomaly. She seemed too young to be, but if she was the source of the ripple, she would be the variable to mend the timeline. His last encounter with a time ripple had been horrible – Rose had tried to save her father, and then lost him because his life was meant to end. It had devastated her. The Doctor couldn't do that to someone else – he wouldn't allow it. He had to avoid a tragic outcome.

And then it occurred to him.

"Where are we going?"

Grace gave a little laugh.

Within minutes, they crested a hill, and the forest fell away in front of them. Perched in the middle of an expansive field was a glorious, domed city, built up in layers with roads running in and out of it at multiple levels. The Doctor marveled at it – it was stunning, and architecturally beautiful, and reminiscent of alien cities – but it was completely and utterly _wrong_. He knew it could not just be an isolated city that had somehow avoided conflict during the Orion Wars. No. It was a very wrong version of Earth. Everything here had to change.

Just as quickly, the forest swallowed them again.

Grace slowed the snowmobile, coming to a gentle stop outside of a steel door, built right into the snow like an escape hatch. "Johnston Dome – but the quiet way." She felt along the edge of the doorframe, presumably hit a button, and then stepped back as the door popped open. She motioned to it, smiling at the Doctor. "You first."

He looked back the way they had come. Rose was trapped in a fractal timeline and he could feel the universe bucking around this corrupted version of Earth. He had no way to know if she would be safe there. He had no way to know if he could solve this problem, but his mind was already wrapped around the idea of never seeing her again. What if landing here, and letting her walk out those doors, had erected a permanent wall between them?

It broke his heart, just thinking about it.

Grace was strangely perceptive of his thoughts. She ventured closer, smiling sadly. "I know. I know how you feel. But this is not helping her. So either get moving, or get out of my way."

He balled up his thoughts and separated them from his duty. He was bound to fix this, no matter how much it hurt. He had an obligation to the universe. He would not let it unravel because of some anomaly on Earth. He would fix it, no matter the cost.


	3. The Short Straw

**Chapter 3.**

 **The Short Straw.**

Rose woke with a start. She came into consciousness like she was emerging from a deep pool of water, sputtering about, trying to get her bearings. Everything was different. She was not in her room, in the TARDIS, or by the pool with the Doctor. She was not in the console room. She was not in the snowy forest. She had not slept, or daydreamed, or noticed any time passing.

But she was somewhere else now.

It was a little cabin.

Rose was sitting by the fireplace with a thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Nearby, the toddler she had picked up in the woods was gazing into the fire. Everything was made of wood, like it came from the 1500s, instead of the 2500s. The whole place was no bigger than her bedroom at home.

And there was a man. He sat up on a little bed, carving a block of wood between two meaty hands and letting the shavings fall wherever they wanted. He looked up when she stirred and nodded at her, giving a little smile that showed, at least, he was not dangerous.

"Found you in the snow."

Rose shivered at the thought of the snowy meadow. Had she curled up and fallen asleep? Was she lying there all cold and pale like the baby? How had she survived?

Her mind was muddy. She came up with a couple of shaky words. "Uh, thanks."

The man readjusted, tilting his head thoughtfully at her. "Where did you come from?"

"Um, I was with my friend. We got separated."

"He was in the forest with you?"

"Well, no. Not exactly. He was… I was… He just disappeared."

"No. _You_ disappeared."

His words were eerie. He let them sit in the air for a moment. Rose had nothing to say to that. She waited, sure there was something to follow.

The man folded his hands together. "You drew the short straw here, sweetheart."

"W-W-What do you mean?"

"When did you find Sebastian?"

Rose wanted to know exactly what the short straw was, and where she was, and where the Doctor had disappeared to. She had a dozen questions, but they were all jumbled up in her head. She found herself looking at the baby, who watched her with wide eyes. He seemed unharmed, despite how pale he had been in the snow. He should have been frozen. They both should have died.

"Uh, just now. Just then. I was… How did he…?"

The man had a gentle voice. She appreciated it, since everything else seemed so harsh. "Easy. It can be a little disorienting when you first get here."

Rose tried to get up, but her knees were like jelly. She ended up rising halfway, and then projecting herself backward into the wall and sliding down to the floor. Everything spun. She grasped the blanket and held it up to her chin. "Where am I?" Her head throbbed. "Do you have a phone? I have to call my friend. He can come get us. Where are we?"

"Just sit still for a little while." He got up, set his carving gently on the bed, and came to crouch nearby. He held out his hand. The gesture seemed rather odd with all that was happening. "You can call me Joh. You already met Sebastian. My nephew, Dalton, should be back soon."

She shook his hand. "Uh, Rose."

"I don't have a phone. Sorry." He motioned to the door. "There's nothing out there."

Those words could have been simple.

She had a feeling they weren't. Rose had learned in her travels with the Doctor that there were certain phrases she never wanted to hear, and that was one of them.

"What does that mean?"

"It means there's nothing out there." He patted the wall, taking a deep breath. "No other people. No cities. Nothing moves. If you walk long enough away from the cabin, you come right up at the back of it. Every day it snows at the same time, but it never hits the ground."

Rose had hoped the fading footprints were just a nightmare. It was not just the impossibility of the impressions literally fading away, but the idea of it, that scared her. It was like walking the Earth without being noticed. It made her feel like a ghost.

"I don't understand."

Joh nodded, rising to get his knife from the bed. He sat cross-legged in front of her, holding the knife out and bobbing his eyebrows, making sure she saw it. She was a second away from skittering off like a scared squirrel, but his actions from that moment on transfixed her.

He drew the blade across his palm, absolutely sheering the flesh.

Rose gasped, horrified, as blood poured into his hand. It was a terrible thing to look at, but before she could think to look away, it had already ended.

Everything stopped.

His blood stopped, suspended, in midair. It was right in front of her, forming globules, drifting down like raindrops. She could barely believe it. She held her breath.

The blood that had fallen began to move backward through the air, rewinding itself, reentering the wound, and like magic the wound sealed shut. His knife was clean. He waited, watching her with intense eyes. He wiggled his fingers to show that he was unharmed.

Rose stumbled for words. "How did you…?" She took his hand, running her fingers over the smooth, uninjured skin.

"You were in the snow for hours, at a temperature that would have killed you in minutes." He stood, retrieved his little figurine from the bed, and sat in the chair by the fireplace, returning to his carving like nothing had happened. "We fell out of time. Fell right out of it."

"But…"

"I know. I know you want to say it's impossible. But it's true. This is purgatory."

"You can't just… time doesn't work like that."

Or did it? All she knew about time was that it was extraordinarily complicated. She only hoped it didn't work like that, because a world without time was terrifying. Never aging, never changing, never making a footprint upon the ground. She wished the Doctor were there to give a convoluted explanation for everything. She would never understand it, but it would make her feel better.

Joh leaned in importantly. "But what if it did? What if time was a big flat sheet and someone decided to cut a few holes in it? What if people got sucked into that hole and dropped off here?"

She shook her head, as if that simple motion could dismiss what she had already seen. Sebastian should not have been alive. He was impossible. She should not be alive. _She_ was impossible. Rose finally found her feet and paced the room, shaking the chill out of her muscles, trying to get her mind to work. What would the Doctor do in this situation? She was stuck here in a cabin, where apparently time did not exist, in some kind of ice age.

It was a strange day all around.

The Doctor would ask questions.

Rose sat on the corner of the bed, watching Joh carve little pieces off of a wooden horse figurine. It struck her. "Why doesn't the wood turn backwards like your cut did?"

"Dunno. Only thing that doesn't so far."

What an odd exception.

"So who are you, then? How did you get here?"

"I was on the dome, fixing a solar pad. I slipped off and my harness let me go. You know, I thought I was falling right off the side of the dome, but I hit the ground here, in this forest. I thought I was dreaming. I thought I died."

Rose almost wanted to skip the next question, but it seemed important.

"How long have you been here?"

Joh studied her. "When Dalton got here, he told me I had been gone for nine years." He sighed, resigned to those horrible words. "Last time I saw him he was a little boy, and then… just like magic. But it feels like nothing. It feels like I got here a few days ago."

Rose did not like the sound of that. How long had she been gone already? Was the Doctor still out there somewhere looking for her, or had it been years?

It was reminiscent of their experience with the damaged spaceship that had windows into the life of a Frenchwoman. The Doctor had stepped in and out of her life, only moments apart, and missed weeks, years, and sometimes decades of it. It broke his heart.

She steered herself away from those questions.

"Did you build this cabin?"

"No. It was already here."

Rose thought of what the Doctor said about his time. "Were there any… wars going on?"

"Not that I know of."

"The Doctor – er, my friend – seemed to think there would be a war going on. If there isn't, something might be wrong with the world. I mean the other one, the one you fell out of."

Joh nodded along with what she said, even though it was total gibberish. "I see glimpses sometimes… in the same places, out in the forest. I get a little glimpse of the other side, but no matter how hard I try to ground myself in the real world, I get sucked back here."

Rose perked up at that. "Glimpses? You mean you can see the real world?"

"I can walk right into it, but I get pulled back here. It's like there's something wrong with me, like a magnetic field that just won't let me go."

Rose stood up, startling the baby and Joh. She motioned to the door, trying to put her brave face on. "You said we wouldn't die if we stayed out too long, right? We can walk out there without dying or turning into popsicles, right?"

"From what I've seen so far."

"You need to show me where those glimpses were."

"Why?"

"If I can get a message to the Doctor, he can figure out what's happening here. We may not be able to get back, but maybe we can fix whatever's wrong with this world."

"You sound a little out of it, sweetheart."

Rose grimaced. She was starting to sound a little bit like the Doctor. "Yeah, well, if being a little bonkers gets me out of this place, sign me up."


	4. A Wanderer and a Warrior

**Chapter 4.**

 **A Wanderer and a Warrior.**

It was not the first time the Doctor had seen a city like this. They dotted the history of this planet, rising and falling alongside the tide of human evolution. But in this century, particularly in this time, the cities were never this full, never this free, and never this dark. Johnston Dome was like a beehive, with more tunnels and passageways than an old horror story. Grimy, faceless, shuffling masses moved about and shouted at one another, never looking up from the littered, greasy ground, never even trying to see the light coming down from above. It was everything he feared when he heard that word. Dome. It was a hamster ball. It was a petri dish of poverty and crime, and it absolutely broke his heart – this was not the world that he loved, but a corruption of it, a corruption of the potential of the human beings he adored so much.

Nothing was as it should be. The dome was made of exceptional technology, far beyond its time, and the city was beautiful on the outside, and up here on the surface, so intricate that it reminded him of an ant colony, but it was all wrong. Socially, artistically, and mechanically, the human race was supposed to be highly advanced, with all the fun and danger of space travel, and all the horrors and spoils of intergalactic war. In this age, there were no silly domes, but force fields blocking out the toxic rain and the powerful UV rays. People did not live in this sort of poverty, because the underprivileged were soldiers who struck out into the stars looking for better fortunes. Cities were empty because most of the people had either been killed, or they had been moved to bunkers, the moon, or even Mars to seek safety from the war.

While they walked, he tried to find a thread to pull, something to unravel this very odd change in the timeline, but nothing seemed obvious. He could not think of one singular event that could impact the Earth like this. It seemed impossible.

And it only got worse.

Grace allowed him appropriate time to gawk at the sky before directing him down several sets of stairs – down and down, and even further, until he was sure they were underground, and then he was sure they were nearly an uninhabitable depth. She finally stopped when the sunlight was completely gone, when the streets were dim and the houses were mostly windowless, when the glow of her neon white snowsuit became the only pure light. She took his hand and showed him the lowest layer of this city, staying silent, because this place did all the talking. He had no words to describe the nature of this.

His guide kept a careful eye on him, thoughtful, absorbing his expressions, and holding his hand a little tighter when someone walked past them.

At first he thought she was afraid.

But he realized that a lot of people – these tattooed, bulky, angry-looking people – moved out of the way as they came down the broken sidewalk. Grace had her goggles up, and her hood back, and she had unzipped her jacket to reveal a black tank top underneath. She walked with her shoulders cocked, and stared at everyone, and everything, without a lick of fear.

The Doctor got the feeling that she was very dangerous. It was not just the reaction these people had to her, but her reaction to her surroundings. She walked like she owned the place. While most of the humans he had seen were tall and lanky, with the standard olive skin of this stage of humanity, Grace was rather stout and pale, like an aggressive little Chihuahua snapping at all of the big dogs that dare pass her by.

She was also strangely childlike, despite being around the same age as Rose. When they got past all the slums and came to a collection of decrepit office buildings, she started babbling. She called out street names to him, yammered about the art of making fried pita, and informed him of the hundreds of layers of tunnels beneath his feet. She made it clear how much she disliked his 'poofy' hair, despite having short hair that stood straight on end like she had been electrocuted.

Despite all of this, her most defining features were her eyes. Among the seas of browns, blacks, and blues in this city, and in all of humanity, she was the one splash of green. A rare color for all humans. But not like this. Hers were like seafoam, bright as can be, and utterly unique.

When she finally stopped, they were standing on the stoop of a little business office. She fiddled with the lock on its front door.

"Where are we?" The Doctor hovered, glancing around to make sure no one noticed her trying to infiltrate this building – which was remarkably like every other building. How had she known which one it was? How had she picked it out of the bunch?

Grace flashed him a smile. "I guess you could call it a news office."

"Enough with the mystery – what is this place?"

She frowned, tugging at a heavy padlock on the door. She was trying unsuccessfully to peel it apart with her bare hands. She spoke between pulls. "It… was… an office… We should… be able… to… find… some… records… _ugh_! I left my clippers at home." She turned, falling dramatically against the door. "All hope is lost."

If things were not so serious, he might have laughed at that. The Doctor took her shoulders and switched places with her. "Stand watch."

"Because there are _so_ many people around."

He used his screwdriver on the lock, turning carefully to keep her from seeing.

Grace jumped up behind him, nearly climbing onto his back. "How did you do that? Did you do something _alien_ to it?"

"Sort of. Now tell me what this place is."

Grace stormed the door, ushering him inside, slamming it shut, and then popping out a torch. She scanned the empty, trashed lobby. "It used to be a news station a long time ago, before the lights went out. I asked my grandpa where I should look for quote-unquote 'weird stuff' and this is what he said. Oldest news we got."

"What do you mean oldest news you got?" The Doctor followed her, pulling out his own torch. The walls had faded lettering identifying this place as a network station. "No, wait, better question. What did you mean, 'before the lights went out?'"

"I thought you noticed outside. Down here, there is no electricity."

"There were streetlamps."

"Little ingenuity me and my cousin worked out. We popped out the bulbs and put candles in. Someone just has to light one, and it stays on for weeks sometimes." She pointed her flashlight at herself, and smiled, "How long did you say we should look back?"

"100 years, give or take a decade."

"Okay. Come on. Snooping to be done. Chop chop."

"I thought you would be more serious, considering your brother is missing as well."

Grace led him down a hallway, finally losing her composure when a crab spider the size of a softball skittered across their path. She shrieked and nearly knocked him down by leaping backward. But she quickly recovered by diving after it, scooping it up by its clawed appendage, and gawking at it. "Look at you, big boy!"

The Doctor shined his light over it, amused by her interest. "You know, I've been alive a very long time, and I've never seen anyone pick one of those up."

"Yeah, extremely venomous. Make big old, gaping wounds in your body. Necrotic wounds. Big old gaping, necrotic wounds." Grace crouched, and set the spider carefully back where it had been. It scuffled away, waving its pincer threateningly. She admired it. "I thought about going to school once. Biology. You get to study stuff like that."

Something compelled him to ask. "Why didn't you?"

"Because my dad went missing, and nothing really seems important after that." She stood up, leaning against one of the grimy walls. She was being strangely honest for someone who had been dodging questions since the moment he met her. "Sebastian is my half-brother. My mom got remarried. But they went missing the same way. You seem to have an idea of what happened to them, so I'm asking you now. Do you know how to fix this?"

The Doctor pressed on ahead of her, glancing in the ruined rooms and finding nothing of interest. "Maybe. Maybe not. I need more information."

Grace grabbed his arm and directed him into one of the emptiest rooms. "Consider this your workspace." She handed him her torch, and reached through her jacket to her back, pulling out a thin laptop and flipping it open. "I use this room to steal the-" She paused, and seemed to reconsider that confession. "This room has a good signal from above. We can access the records from here, without any interruptions."

"Who would be interrupting us?"

"Oh, you know, miscreants, with whom I do not associate."

"I have a feeling you do."

The Doctor shined the torch on the door, and saw two people standing there. A man and a woman. The man had a metal rod in his hands. Both of them looked rough, like the people shuffling in the streets, and they looked majorly irritated with Grace.

She saw them just after him, and set the laptop on the ground. She took back her torch and pointed it at the man's face. "Jim, you look like crap."

Jim flinched, grimacing. "Who is this guy?"

Grace answered before the Doctor could, "Don't worry about it."

Jim stepped into the room, beating his palm with the metal rod like he was auditioning for the part of the bruiser in every mob movie ever made. "We heard you say 'alien' outside. Is he an alien? Is he? Is he an alien?"

"No, and thanks for repeating that. I didn't catch it the first two times. And really, what are you gonna do with that? Pole or not, I'll spank you up and down that hallway." Grace stepped closer to the Doctor, more protective than fearful. She gave off nonchalance, but she seemed tense, ready to fight. "What are you doing here?"

"Following you," the woman answered.

"Sally, hi, forgot you could talk. I gathered that. You know, since you showed up here, in this very obscure location. I guessed you were probably following me. But thanks, again, for that. What I asked was, what are you doing here? As in, why are you here, what do you want, etcetera."

Jim glanced at his companion, Sally, and seemed to have a hard time following Grace's quick words. "Is he an alien or not?"

Grace stared at him for a moment, and the Doctor caught a rush of activity behind those alien eyes of hers. "Oh, okay, you guys, I appreciate the visit, but I really can't deal with the stupid today. Got a lot on my plate." She lunged sideways, groping for something in the darkness.

Jim advanced and swung the pole haphazardly, catching the Doctor in the cheek. He hit the ground, catching himself on his palms, and rolled out of the way before Jim could literally lumber on top of him. He was off-balance. He tripped into the wall, and Grace came up behind him.

She had pipe.

The Doctor shouted, "No!"

Grace made a face at him, on top of the game for thinking quickly, and whirred around, striking Sally in the hand with the pipe and knocking a knife out of her hand. She retrieved it, dropped the pipe, and tossed the knife at the far wall. It clanged to the ground.

"I meant to stab that into the wall," Grace clarified.

Jim stood straight again, huffing. He was starting to remind the Doctor of an old slapstick comedy – big, lumpy head, dim expression, just waiting to slip on a banana peel.

Grace motioned to the Doctor, "Oh, thanks Jim. I needed him with his skull bashed in. You're really helpful."

The Doctor sat up, scooting away from the brute. "That was – _ow_! – unnecessary."

" _Jim_ is unnecessary. He flunked out of garbage collection school." Grace had her foot on the pipe, and she rolled it back and forth over the debris-littered ground, creating an eerie crackling sound that stayed the two visitors. "If you would both listen for a second, you would get it. I got him for _Ray_. But he might know how to find my dad, so I need to keep him for a little while. You can take him after that, and Ray can hold his freaking horses."

"Who the hell is Ray?" the Doctor asked.

Jim advanced on Grace, but in a moment she had retrieved the pipe and given him a good smack on the arm. He withdrew, holding back a whimper. "Ray doesn't work like that."

"Not my problem."

Sally, who seemed bored with the whole encounter and, now that she was disarmed, unwilling to try anything against Grace, leaned into the doorway. "It is your problem."

"Ray is Raymond," Grace said to the Doctor. "Big old ego." She looked at Sally, holding the pipe at arm's length, and then she directed it to Jim. "Jimmy-boy. Give me a day. When all this is said and done, you can give him to Ray, and he can turn him over to the Council."

"I wouldn't-"

"You wouldn't trust me as far as you could throw me. I know. You're gonna have to get over that. Either come back armed – _more_ armed – or wait your turn."

Grace had an impressive predatory presence, calm in a crisis. She seemed a lot like him, if not more violent, and definitely willing to hurt these people. Jim was three or four times her size, muscled like a bull, and certainly capable of overwhelming her with brute force, but she kept him at bay with the pipe, like a lion tamer or a cobra charmer. She was basically inviting them to come back with weapons, and with an attitude.

And just like that, they left.

Grace nodded to herself, shut the door, and picked up her laptop. She sat by the door. "I'm not really handing you over. Once we find my dad you can go."

"Does that make me your prisoner?"

"Sort of."

"What is the Council? What do they want with aliens? I thought you said they were banned."

"Trust me, Doctor, you don't want to know."

Grace peeled her snowsuit down to her waist, exposing her arms, which were wreathed in dark, intricate tattoos, so that barely any skin showed through.

"You sure can take a hit."

The Doctor prodded his cheek, wincing. He very rarely got taken off guard so brutally. "What does the Council want with aliens? And what _is_ the Council? You lot don't have a Council yet. What are they counseling?"

Grace leveled her otherworldly eyes into his. "You should never have come here. I like you. You're weird. But you never should have come here."

"I didn't come here. I was brought here. My ship died."

"What ship?"

"The little blue box in the woods."

"Your ship is a little box?"

"It's complicated. What is the Council?"

"You really don't know?"

"If I knew, would I be asking you over and over again? Just tell me."

"The Council is… the order. They decide everything in the city. Aliens are forbidden. If you give an alien to the Council, you get rewarded with cash, food, or a higher house. Raymond wants the cash reward. If he handed you over, he would probably get enough money to arm his cronies and flood the streets with bullets."

"He sounds like a model citizen." The Doctor knew gangs were inevitable with a city built this way, but he didn't expect to have a brush with one so soon. "Why are aliens forbidden? This is supposed to be the enlightened age. Humans are supposed to be working side-by-side with aliens. You lot are supposed to be in your golden years – okay, well, with wars and what not going on, but still way more advanced than this. This… this is _rubbish_."

Grace narrowed her eyes, apprehensive. "What about it, specifically?"

"Well, the dome for one. What a terrible idea. By this time you guys have reflector technology. If you want to keep the cold out, or the warm in, or the UV rays up in the sky, you just set up a big old shield for it. Invisible. Harmless. No need for a literal dome over the city. And this layered setup is atrocious. If anything's going to breed crime and poverty, it's a city _literally_ built with a top and a bottom. What dunce approved all of this?"

"The Council."

"Well, I'd like to have a word with them."

Grace laughed. It was an odd reaction in this situation. But it was welcome, because it made her more human. "You are so strange."

He tried to impress the seriousness of the situation on her. "This isn't how it's supposed to be."

"And you said you've seen this before?"

"I have."

"So what hope is there?"

He lost his train of thought for a moment. "What?"

"What hope is there? Why are you so upset about it? This is the world. This is how it is. Even if we figure out what caused it and somehow got my dad back, and your friend back, what hope is there? Look at this place. It'll never change."

"It was never meant to be this way, and the things humans are involved in beyond this will never happen if it stays this way – important things. Things that _have_ to happen."

"But how can you know all this?"

"Because I've seen it. I know how this world looks, and it's not like this. I don't know what's happened here, but it's wrong."

" _How_ , Doctor? How have you seen it?"

The Doctor bit his lip. _Did_ he trust her? She was starting to wear on him. She was smart, and capable, and as far as allies went he couldn't have asked for a better one.

In the interest of saving Rose, and of protecting the universe from imploding, he had to swallow that bad feeling he had about Grace Shaw. He shoved it aside and spoke as bluntly as he could. "I'm a time traveler. I know what this planet should be like because I've been here during this exact year, and seen it a completely different way. I know what path humans take because I've seen your future, and I've seen your past."

Grace was barely fazed. "What kind of alien are you?"

"I just told you I'm a time traveler, and that's what you ask?"

"Well, you just look so human. So normal. And you even speak English – with a weird accent, but still, English. But you're not human. How are you _doing_ that?"

Her curiosity was pointed. What was she really trying to figure out? "Let me ask you something: How did you know I wasn't human in the first place?"

"Lucky guess."

"No, no. Something more than that. You knew that I wasn't human because _you're_ not."

Grace smiled, and the Doctor could not decipher whether it was a knowing smile, or a smile that stemmed from her assuming he was insane.

He really needed to know. He was painfully curious. She was all the things he was – human, normal looking, English-speaking, and intelligent. The Doctor was convinced he had seen her eyes before. He just _knew_ it.

Grace gathered herself and fired back. "You didn't answer me."

"Which question would you like answered?"

"How are you appearing human?"

"Did you ever stop to think that I wasn't appearing human, but that humans were appearing like me? We were here first, for the record."

"You can't answer a question with a question."

"Why not?"

"Because we never get anywhere."

"Who says I'm trying to get anywhere?"

Grace laughed, setting her computer aside. She came over and crouched in front of him, staring him down, as if trying to pick out a scale or two over his nose, or trying to spot antennas in his hair. When she came to his cheek, she ran her index finger over the forming bruise, genuine guilt in her eyes. "Sorry about that. Forgot you were behind me when I moved."

He was suddenly close enough to work out the complicated patterns on her arms. Between the tattoos of falling stars and spinning galaxies were thick, heavy scars. From her shoulder to the tips of her fingers, she was covered in them. It was like someone had put the poor girl through the shredder. And he could tell they were not from a singular instance. They were varied in shape and size and color, cleverly hidden behind the ink, but not invisible.

He had the questions ready, but when he looked into her eyes, he forgot about the timeline, and the universe destabilizing, and all things remotely logical.

He found himself on Gallifrey for the briefest moment.

He was lying in the grass between lessons, staring up through the trees, and the leaves were that same stunning shade of green. His favorite place in the universe was echoed in her eyes, and it was so disarming, so surprising, that it made his soul flutter, it made him grasp his chest, afraid one of his hearts would give out on the spot. It made him ache for home. He had not felt that way since he was little, before he had his name, before he was a wanderer and a warrior. He had not felt that way since the last time his mother had held him, before his feet were set permanently on the ground, before he had even known there was such a thing as the universe, and before he had cared.

He heard the rush of the ocean, the call of the Broadbirds, the unsettling whisper of a long lost world. He sat there, staring at her, captivated, and Grace looked back, fascinated, probably wondering what in the world had come over him.

It was such a quick moment, such a snapshot, but the Doctor was left breathless by the time she looked away. He never let people get to him like that. He shied away from that kind of intimacy. His home was incredibly precious to him, now lost forever, a memory that could never be revisited, and she had given him a glimpse of it.

He was suddenly certain that she had been the thing to pull them down to this planet, not the failing timeline. Somehow she had called out to him, and clutched the TARDIS by its soul, and dragged them down to help her.

It was beautiful, and terrifying.

She must have been the keeper of a very great and very ancient power.

"What is it?" Grace asked, lingering very close, but looking away. She gave him a few more glances, hesitant to meet his eyes again.

He could only think of one thing to say.

"Who are you?"

She swallowed. "No one. Grace."

"Certainly not no one. _Grace_. You are something _else_ , aren't you?"

Grace frowned and drew away, put off by the attention. She went back to the door, typed on the laptop, and kept her eyes carefully off of him. The Doctor tried to catch his breath, to sort out his thoughts about what had happened to him. Nothing took him off guard like that. Nothing hit him so hard.

And nothing hit the TARDIS so hard.

And nothing made the remote flicker so furiously.

What in the _world_ was going on with this girl?


	5. The Pattern

**A/N: DonnaDoctorTardis: I'm glad you like it so far! Don't worry, there's a reason that grass was green. But I love how you caught that detail. I didn't think anyone would!**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 5.**

 **The Pattern.**

It was dreadfully cold in the forest. Rose decided she disliked winter and everything about it. She had a headache from the bright glare of the snow; walking in it was impossible because the forest floor was so uneven; every breath felt like pins shooting down her throat and jumping around in her lungs. But the cold could not kill her. Joh kept pointing that out, even as the two of them staggered on like featherless penguins. Rose had the baby in her arms, gleaning a miniscule amount of heat from him, but it would never be enough to fight the cold.

Her guide was much better suited than her. He wore a thick red jacket and he had gone, perhaps, years without trimming his beard. He had a red toboggan on when she met him, but he gave it to her when they started the walk. Joh looked like a lumberjack, all big and burly, and Rose looked like a little schoolgirl on a fieldtrip in her cloth shorts and glittered shirt. She might as well have kept on her bathing suit, for all the warmth her clothes were giving her.

Despite the constant worries of succumbing to the weather, Rose managed curiosity. She wondered how Joh could have spent nine years here. Was he still mentally stable? Was there really a man named Dalton out here somewhere? Why did he keep looking up into the trees?

Rose did her best to befriend him.

"It must have been lonely, being trapped here. What do you do all day?"

His answer came detached, almost toneless. "I think it's the same day."

"What?"

Joh paused and motioned to the sun, peeking at them through the trees. "It comes up and goes down, yeah, but it never changes position. It just repeats the same day, over and over again." He continued on, satisfied to have explained his point. He moved on from that revelation like it was a perfectly normal thing. "I mostly carve the figurines. You know, it's the damndest thing – only the horses stay carved. I have ten of them so far. But the others… it takes a little longer, but they just revert back into branches."

"That's an odd exception."

"My daughter likes horses, anyway. I guess it worked out."

"How old is she?"

"Ten. Well, not anymore."

Rose knew that kind of pain. Joh looked away from her as his thoughts went to his daughter. If he had really been away for nine years, he had missed a good portion of her life. Rose had seen the same pain in her own father when he realized he had not been a part of _her_ life. He had gone out to get struck by that car knowing he wouldn't be the dad he wanted to be.

But there was still a chance for Joh. He could still get back to his daughter and be a part of her life. Nine years was really nothing in the long run. It was nothing.

She put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. The Doctor will figure this out. It's what he does."

"You keep saying that. Who is he?"

Rose smiled. "He's… wonderful. He handles things like this. He helps people. And he would never leave me. He'll find a way to get us out."

"I wish this were a mechanical problem. I could solve it." Joh walked in silence for a few moments, and then his voice got lower, and the sadness returned. "Do you think…? If we fixed this, and somehow, miraculously, made it out of this forest…? Would I get back to Grace when she's a little girl, or when she's all grown up?"

"I don't know. But we can't think about that right now. Focus on finding the glimpses."

Joh nodded, still obviously distressed by the idea, but he managed to put it aside. They walked until midday, until they got to the meadow where she had found the little boy.

"If you go past this any further, you come up on the back of the cabin."

"Why didn't we just go behind the cabin to get here, then?"

"Doesn't work like that."

"Seems like it should."

"Seems like time should keep moving, but not here." Joh stepped into the center, making a fresh trail of snow where there should have been footprints from Rose coming through before. He stopped in the center and turned around. "Right here. If you wait a while, standing right here in the middle, you can see the real world. Everything changes. Trust me."

Rose stood beside him, turning in circles and watching the trees. Last time she had been here, sitting and waiting for the Doctor to show up, she had suddenly found herself in the cabin. It was like a glitch. Like before, the trees were uniform, and their footprints vanished. She had no way of knowing where they had come from.

Patience was not her strong suit.

"Everything looks the same."

"Be patient."

She wasn't sure what she was going to do when everything changed, but she waited anyway, her muscles tensed up to spring into action.

Minutes passed.

"Still nothing."

Joh sighed. "You're gonna have to wait more than five minutes."

Rose sat in the snow. "Do you have a plan? Because I don't."

"I dunno. I thought we would just… make a run for it, maybe?"

"If I could just talk to the Doctor, I could explain this, and he would fix it."

"I don't have any paper or anything for a message... pretty sure it would un-write itself, anyway."

Rose looked around for something to send a message with, but the forest floor was clear of limbs and writing in the snow with her finger was useless. It only faded.

Hours passed in silence.

"It should have happened by now." Joh paced the meadow, and Rose followed the pattern of his footprints disappearing behind him. "Something is wrong."

"Is the sun setting already?" Rose glanced at the darkening sky.

"It should be afternoon… not evening. It never sets that quickly." Joh ran his hand over his balding head, sighing. "We should get back to the cabin. Dalton will wonder where we went."

Rose lingered in the meadow, watching the sun as it departed. It was very rapid. It made a sick feeling in her stomach. "I think maybe we're running out of time. I think the wound is getting worse. But where are the…?"

"What? What wound?"

She swallowed. "Uh, the time wound. You said you thought we fell out of time and we sort of did. I think I know what happened here. Something happened that shouldn't have. Something serious. Something that was important. I caused one when we were back in time… I saved my dad when he was supposed to die. But it was nothing like this… and there were these monsters…"

Rose heard a shrill shriek up above. Dozens of black shapes moved among the branches.

Her heart dropped. "I suppose if I had kept my big mouth shut-"

"Run!" Joh grabbed her, shoving her ahead.

Rose started running, clutching Sebastian and looking back constantly to make sure Joh was still there. He passed her, running in longer strides, and as the distance between them grew the creatures began to drop from the trees. Long, black wings unfurled and beat after her.

Something was off. Joh was way ahead and there were creatures up there, too, but they were fixated on her. It was like he was invisible.

One of them swooped by, turned, and flew straight at her.

She braced herself for the sensation of teeth.

But something crashed into it before she did.

It was a young man, presumably Dalton. He tussled with the monster and it did nothing to attack him. It only screeched, horrified, and tried to squirm away. Some of them hit the ground and turned back, retreating to their branches and hissing at the new arrival.

What in the world was going on?

Dalton released the creature and grabbed Rose by the arm, urging her to run again. She did, looking back over and over to confirm a new theory – the creatures were not interested in him. Their big yellow eyes were following Rose. Both this man and Joh, and possibly the toddler, were safe. So why was she a target?

When they got to the cabin, Joh threw the door open and ushered them inside. Sebastian squirmed to get down, and then clawed his way up Dalton. Rose nearly collapsed she was so out of breath.

"Well, that never happened before." Joh patted her shoulder. "You okay?"

Rose nodded. "They never attacked?"

"No. Never."

"It must be you, then." Dalton took a seat by the fire, holding the toddler on his knee. He had some of the same facial features as Joh, and the same scraggly red beard. "Who are you?"

"She just got here today. I found her in the snow with Sebastian." Joh flicked his wrist. "That is him, right? I thought it must be. Only one that fit your description."

"It is." Dalton patted the toddler's back.

Rose was mystified. "Can someone explain this to me?"

"I got here three days ago." Dalton motioned to Joh. "Joh is my uncle. Sebastian is my cousin. I told Joh what everybody looked like so he would know who it was if he found someone."

"Sebastian is my wife's youngest, with her new husband." Joh looked at the boy, and then his eyes settled on Rose. "We figured out the pattern, I guess."

Information was being given very rapidly. It made her head spin.

" _Pattern_?"

"It's our family." Dalton shook his head, resting against the fireplace like it was a lifeline. He had no fear for the flames. "Before I got here, Joh found some of them… some of my cousins. Dead. They went missing in the real world, just like him. Just like me, now."

Rose skipped over the gravity of the pattern for a moment. She went to sit across from Dalton by the fireplace. "Everyone you found was in your family?"

His eyes were dark. "Yes."

"That's terrible."

Joh took a seat on the bed, taking up carving his eleventh figure again. It was shaping out to be another horse. "But you're the outlier. You don't look like you're related to us."

"I'm not. I mean, I can't be. I'm not from here."

"Then how did you get here?"

"I don't know." Rose felt overwhelmed. If this timeless forest was pulling in members of the same family, the wound had something to do with them. But her head was throbbing, and all she wanted to do was go home. She couldn't think.

Joh interrupted her silent suffering. His words were bleak, but his voice was gentle. "More bad news, sweetheart. We did the math. More and more people are popping up here, faster. I was out looking for someone new when I found you and Sebastian in the snow. You and him were the last to arrive. Someone else should be here by now."

"How do you figure that?"

Joh responded somberly. "A little math and a lot of dead children."

It was an awful thing to hear in any situation. It gave Rose a chill.

Dalton stood up, leaving his cousin pouting on the ground. He took a deep, settling breath. "I have to go look for them. Hopefully they survived."

"No. Let me." Joh set his carving down again, brushing the flakes off of his shirt. "Only ones left are people I might know. Mom. Dad. Aunts and uncles."

Dalton sunk back to the floor, appearing a little relieved, but he said nothing. The men shared a glance, and then Joh left. It was a loaded look. It made Rose wonder if there was some danger out there that they had not mentioned to her. Did she even want to know?


	6. The Deciding Event

**Chapter 6.**

 **The Deciding Event.**

He was doing his best to be patient, but he had so many things he wanted to ask her. What were her parents like? What _were_ her parents? Why did she seem so frustrated with the world? What was she thinking about right now, as she stared back at him with those strange green eyes? Were all of these time anomalies and ripples because of something she had done? And, most importantly, most critically, and most frustratingly, how had she forced the TARDIS to land like that?

It was fascinating. _She_ was fascinating.

Before he got the opportunity to ask his questions, Grace hopped up and brought her laptop over. She sat right beside him, shuffling through history pages filled with things that never should have happened. She handed it over. "Go through this. See if anything conflicts with what you know about history. We can find the point of origin."

The Doctor put his curiosity on hold and focused on the most pressing issue. "We should look for big events." He twisted the laptop closer, scrolling through the documents. "Look for some miraculous savior who stepped in and saved a life that would have been doomed otherwise. Look for some mysterious new technology or insider knowledge that reshaped the economy."

Grace was on board. She nodded with every word. For several minutes she leaned in with him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and they went over the documents together.

And then she appeared uncertain. She sat back, her confidence clouded.

The Doctor sensed that she had the answer. "If you know something – if you're holding something back – you need to tell me right now. I'm not sure how much more time we have to fix this."

Grace turned those impossible eyes on him, and for the first time she looked very afraid. "I lost my dad nine years ago. I was ten. He disappeared at work one day. I waited for him to come home every day for _years_ , because I knew he would never leave me alone with my mom."

Oh, yes. She had the answer. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Five years later, Adrian disappeared. Uh, my brother. Everyone thought he was killed, but I thought… maybe… And then Mark went missing after that, and I put the pieces together. It was speeding up. Dalton – er, my cousin – disappeared three days ago, and Sebastian yesterday."

He nodded. He could see the pattern. "If that pattern kept-"

"It has. Perfectly. I don't know all my relatives, but from what I've found out, it's just been my family. I thought it was so sad at first… and then I realized… I was in the woods because I wanted it to take me next. If I… If I could get over there, I could find him."

He hated to see anyone hurt like this. He hated to see anyone _want_ like this. He knew that feeling. He loved people who were burdened by it every day. He _burned_ with it.

"Grace… that would… you would never be able to get out."

"It doesn't matter. I just want him back." She put her hand over her mouth, letting a little half-sob escape before she captured it. She stared at him, surprised, a tear forming in her eye, and then she wiped it away. She was determined to be strong.

He thought about hugging her, but she didn't seem like the affectionate type.

"Do you know of any event like that one I described?"

Grace turned toward him, sitting cross-legged, with her hands resting on her knees. The sad pinch of her eyes told him she knew exactly what he was talking about – and it told him she had already worked through the gravity of it all.

And she must have known that he saw that in her, but she spoke hypothetically anyway, perhaps hoping to delay the inevitable.

Her voice reminded him of a scolded child.

"What if there was a little boy who got hurt, and who should have died, but someone saved him? What if… what if he grew up to propose the domes, and head the Council, and help build the layers in the city? What if…?"

"Who was it, Grace?"

She wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. "If I said I didn't know…"

"Who was it?"

"My great-grandfather. My dad's dad's dad."

The Doctor saw the implications the moment she said it. If he was never meant to live, where did that put her? She had already worked it out.

"Did anyone from your mom's side go missing?"

"No."

"Then it must be related to him. What happened?"

"I don't know. He used to tell a story, but never anything specific. We can talk to him, ask him about it." She stood up, holding out a hand for him. "Can you fix it? Can you bring my dad back?"

The Doctor had nothing but a grim stare for that.

Grace seemed to grasp the situation very well. She had known early on what the timeline split entailed. It was a strange knowledge for young girl in a corrupted world to know, but he kept his questions to himself. It was hard enough for her already.

"I want to hear you say it." She stood in front of him, blocking the door. Her eyes were dangerous again. "Say it out loud – say what you have to do."

"I'm not going to kill him."

"Then what?"

"Grace…" It was a hard thing to admit. He had avoided admitting it to Rose, too. "If he was meant to die… your father would have never been born. Your mother would not have remarried and had your brothers. Your aunts and uncles on your father's side… your cousins…"

" _Me_."

"Yes. But we might be able to work around all of that. Maybe we can go back and steer him off of the course that changed the timeline. If he would just keep his head down, he could stay alive."

"But everything would be different."

"It's better than letting him die."

Grace took a deep breath through her nose. She seemed to want to argue, to say something snarky, or even to hit him, but she didn't. She stepped closer, cautious, and then wrapped her arms around his neck in a brief, warm hug.

She whispered, "Please, do whatever you can to save my dad."

When she pulled away, he had that question on his lips again – _who are you?_ – but he held it back. Who she was did not matter nearly as much as what she wanted right now. She was just a child in the grand scheme of things. She was a girl who wanted her dad back.

And he wanted to give that to her.

The Doctor shook himself, pulling his mind away from the warmth in her eyes, and focused on the task at hand. "Let's go talk to your great-grandfather."


	7. A Turn for the Worst

**A/N: I really appreciate your feedback :)**

 **Chapter 7.**

 **A Turn for the Worst.**

"You said you weren't from here."

Dalton had a lot to talk about. He told her about his world, about the job he had before he got to the forest, and about his family. He spoke a lot of his cousin, Grace, and wondered if she would be showing up soon. He was much more optimistic than his uncle, and very kind, right down to his soul – he comforted Sebastian, and kept telling Rose that no matter what the Doctor did, Grace would come help them. He had that good spark inside that made him easy to get along with. It seemed that his whole family had it.

She liked listening to him. His voice kept the quiet away. She was sitting up on the bed, against the wall, with a wooly blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and listening to him was the only activity she had. She couldn't fall asleep. She wasn't even tired.

But eventually she had to talk back.

What could she say about how she had gotten there? It was 2558 and surely they knew of spaceships, but time travel was out of the question. Or was it?

"Um, yeah. We came from far off."

"How far off?"

"You know that friend I told you about?"

"Yeah. Some kind of doctor."

"We sort of… we travel a lot. He has a spaceship."

Dalton had taken up the carving, and he paused at her words. "Oh, yeah?"

"I come from pretty far away."

"What about your friend, then?"

"He comes from further away."

"Is he an alien?"

Rose shrugged. "Some days more than others."

"Keep that between us. The Council would have him if they found out."

"I thought people were alright with aliens now?"

"No. Aliens are forbidden."

He said it with such finality that Rose worried for the Doctor. He looked human enough until he opened his big mouth. She hoped he would avoid drawing attention.

Dalton finished off the horse and set it on the mantle over the fire, in a line of eleven. He was shadowed by the one-year-old as he paced around the cabin. He started talking again, babbling on about anything that came to his mind, and Rose settled in to listen.

His line of dialogue stopped when he checked outside.

"Looks like those creatures are gone." He tapped the wall, stepping out a little further. "How long do you think we've been in here?"

"A few hours, I think. Why?"

"Dawn."

Rose stood up, stepping out with him. He was right. Beyond the glare of the snow, the sky was lightening. The shadows of the trees were shifting a little too rapidly across the ground.

"It just set." Rose could hardly believe what she was seeing. Like a time-lapsed video, the sun rose higher and higher into the sky, cresting overhead and setting behind the cabin in a span of a few minutes. Following a brief respite of darkness, it began rising again.

Dalton pushed her back inside. "We should… we should wait for Joh."

Rose sat on the corner of the bed, massaging her forehead to get the headache to go away. It didn't budge. "What _was_ that? Is the day really speeding up?"

"I don't know how else to explain it." Dalton picked his cousin up and started pacing again. "What does that mean? Joh should be back by now!"

"Just calm down. You panicking isn't helping anything."

Dalton sat beside her, and silence ensued.

Rose could not grasp how long they sat there. Outside, the constant flashing of day to night became like a strobe light. Days must have become months by now, maybe even years. Or time never passed here, and it was just a cruel joke someone was playing with the sun. Rose did her best to stay occupied, wandering the cabin every now and then, daring a glance outside at the strange, timeless forest, playing with the baby, who was oblivious to their situation. She got a good look at the line of horses, and wondered about the cabin, and the forest, and all the other oddities she had come across in this place.

When she went back to the bed and sat beside Dalton, he finally spoke.

"With the sun moving like that… we might have been sitting here for weeks, maybe months. Do you think the world is moving on without us? Do you think everybody will forget about us?"

He sounded so afraid.

Rose took his hand. "Don't say that."

Despite his voice remaining level, almost monotone, his words were cutting.

"Why not? Don't you wonder? Your friend, the Doctor – how long do you think he would wait for you? Months? Years? Would he wait decades? I keep thinking of everyone out there and I come back to Grace – you know, she waited for Joh to come home every single day when he went missing. I know because I helped her look for him. We were little kids, running around out in the snow, and I remember every single day how devastated she was. Is that what my mom is doing? Is that what my brothers are doing? Because I don't want that. I don't want them to feel that."

Rose shrunk into the wall, hating his logic, but following it, and finding her own sorrow in it. She would never wish that on the Doctor. She would want him to move on, if she was to be lost here forever. But she wanted him back. She didn't want to be another sad story in his life. She wanted to find him, and go to that beach with the tiny little people, and see him smile and laugh again.

She refused to believe that this was the end.

Even as that resolve settled over her, the situation took a turn for the worst.

Dalton started struggling to breathe.

He clutched at his chest, gasping for air, wheezing like his throat had suddenly closed. His face turned an awful shade of red. Rose leaped off the bed and grabbed him, laying him down, searching desperately for some way to help him.

His face paled.

He stared at her, and then his gasping stopped.

He choked the words out. "I feel… empty."

Rose let him go, putting her hands to her face, and catching tears before they could come down her cheeks. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. What do I do?"

Sebastian hit the carpet and started gasping.

Rose turned, trying to go to him, but Dalton grabbed her arm. He held onto her so hard that she could fee his fingers touch her bone.

And then his body burst into grains of sand, hovering there in the air for a split second before they completely disappeared. Gone. Just like that. Like he had never been there. Rose looked back and found the carpet empty. Sebastian was gone as well.

Both of them had turned into nothing right before her eyes.

Where her two companions had been there was now only empty air.

Rose was alone again.

She waited a while for the wheezing to strike, convinced the same end was coming for her, but she remained. Even as the cabin melted away over her head, and the trees blinked out of existence, and the cold left, and the sky faded, and she was surrounded by a vast plain of white, like being wrapped in a sheet, nothing happened to her.

But as the world became this great white expanse, one other object resisted. Eleven little wooden horses, lying in a row on the ground.

And they remained, even when the white sheet folded in to strangle her.


	8. A Proper Life

**Chapter 8.**

 **A Proper Life.**

It was getting a lot less crowded in the city, and a lot warmer. People deeply connected to the corrupted timeline were hitting the ground, choking, and dissipating into nothing before the Doctor could try and help them. Grace took his hand, stopping his efforts, and they ran down an almost endless street, up several flights of stairs, back into the sunlight. The Doctor got an uneasy feeling from the sky. It was like the dome was trying to fade away.

Time was quite literally running out.

"Looks like spring is coming early," Grace observed. "I told you it was summer last week."

"Time is accelerating, folding in on itself. We need to hurry. I need to know exactly when it happened. I have to have the precise details."

Grace finally stopped when they were both utterly breathless. "In here." She dragged him up a stiff set of stairs, into another uniform building on the corner of what once must have been a busy intersection. Now it was full of wrecked cars and screaming pedestrians. "You're supposed to schedule an appointment or whatever, but you can use that alien thingy on the door, right? Kicking it down is another option."

When they got up to the proud oak doors, the Doctor used his screwdriver on the lock, and the two of them rushed inside. It was a home for the elderly. Old people relaxed in the rooms they passed, and several caretakers tried to stop them, but Grace shoved past them like a force of nature, and the Doctor called out apologies to those she actually managed to knock over. She was a little thing, but dangerous at high speeds. He looked into every room as they passed, getting glimpses of the destruction outside, of the dome shimmering up above. Everyone in the city knew something bad was going on by now. He only feared that dome would shatter and rain glass down on the denizens before they could get the details out of this old man.

Grace stopped, turned a sharp corner, and jerked the Doctor into a common area. She pointed out a little old man sitting next to a large bay window, and they marched right up to him.

He wasted no time.

"You, Grandad, when did you have your life saved by a mysterious stranger?"

The old man looked up, startled, and frowned at the Doctor. "What?"

"You were a little boy and you got hurt. Someone came to help you. I need to know exactly when this happened. Exactly where it happened."

It was very obvious the man knew what he was talking about. There was a light of recognition in his eyes, a little flash of guilt. He looked down and away, responding with an innocent, "I don't know what you mean."

Grace crouched by the side of his chair, giving him one of her intense stares. "I know you're not senile. You told all of us stories when we were little, about the stranger that saved your life from an alien. You said you almost died. You ran for election on that story."

While she spoke to her grandfather, the Doctor leaned into the bay window to get a better look at the dome. It was not just cracking, but beginning to shimmer and fade, having no purpose in this completely wrong timeline. Below, the streets were becoming empty as the people who should not have been born collapsed, choked, and faded into spirals of light. It was a horrible thing to watch – the Doctor had never imagined them being in physical pain, but the timeline was literally choking them to death. They were not simply being unborn anymore. They were being killed.

He thought of Rose and his heart clenched.

His patience wore thin.

The Doctor put his hands on the armrests of the wheelchair, turning the old man toward him and leaning closer. He was practically spitting fire. "Your descendants are being taken one at a time because they were never meant to be born. This whole timeline is falling apart because of something that happened to you! Tell me now, or the entire universe might crumble in on itself trying to fix it! Tell me what happened!"

The man appeared bewildered, and the feigned innocence drained out of his face. He knew exactly what the Doctor was talking about.

"He said this would happen."

The Doctor clutched the chair to stop himself from grabbing the old man and shaking him. There was nothing worse than vague statements when he was on a strict schedule. "Who did? Who told you that? Who saved you?"

"He said it was an accident – a reflex. He told me not to do anything groundbreaking."

"Bloody lot of good that did!"

The old man looked at Grace, giving his confession to her. "I didn't get attacked by an alien… I was saved by one."

The Doctor figured as much. He shook the chair to recapture the old man's attention. "I need to know the exact date. I need the time. I need the place. Everything hinges on this."

"I expelled all the aliens from the city, had them killed, paid people to rat them out… and he saved me. He gave me another chance and I destroyed the world."

"Yes, yes. You did. But you have a chance to fix it now. Tell me what I need to know."

"So you can _stop_ him? So you can let me die?"

He felt a twinge of guilt, because, at this point, knowing what he knew so far, that was exactly what he was going to do. "I'm sorry, but you weren't supposed to survive. You were never meant to live."

"Everything that I did for this city… everything I accomplished…"

"It was never meant to happen."

"Who are you to decide that?"

"We don't have time for this! Look outside! Your city is being shredded! Your life corrupted the timeline so severely that it has to correct itself! But it can't, and it's going to tear a hole in the universe trying to, and the whole of existence is going to crumple up and blink into nothing!"

Finally, the old man relented. "It was… ninety-nine years ago. 2459. December 9. I was five years old and I fell into a dry riverbed near my house… on Oak Street, in Littlewood. Early morning."

The Doctor released his chair, and took one last look at the crumbling city. He hated that this one event meant so much to the world, that he had to do something unthinkable to save his most beloved planet, but he stood as the only one capable. He was the only one who _could_ fix it.

He spoke to the old man, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

With that, and with a new weight on his shoulders, the Doctor left the hospital. Grace followed, now too wrapped up in this to stop and think of what it meant for her. Surely, she would have stayed behind if she knew what he was planning. It just hadn't occurred to her yet. It hadn't sunk in. But the old man understood. The Doctor saw it in his eyes.

"We need to get to my ship." He hit the street, finding it painfully empty. Just a few confused people remained, not understanding the sudden disappearance of their cohorts.

Grace jogged away. "Motorcycle!"

"What about the snowmobile?"

"Summer now. Kind of useless on grass."

He followed her, hopping on the back of a small motorcycle seconds before she peeled down the road. He reached around her to take the handles while she struggled out of her snowsuit. It was getting hotter, like the sun was bearing down on them.

She took the same route out of the city, racing down a dark, dank tunnel to a steel door. She tore through the forest, skirting around trees that seemed to be flitting in and out of existence. The snow was completely melted already. The sky was turning rapidly darker. Time was accelerating and collapsing at the same time. It was almost over.

Finally, they arrived at the TARDIS. The Doctor barely let her stop before he got off and rushed the console. He entered the dates, pulled a few levers, and was slammed with a realization.

"It's not working!"

Grace stood outside the door. She looked in on him, but didn't step inside. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor joined her, swallowing a lump in his throat. "When we got here, the TARDIS stopped working. It just dropped us and died." He put his hands on his head. Trees were popping in and out of focus nearby, flashing all sorts of unnatural colors.

He paced, trying to reconcile his frustration.

"And, you know, I deserve this, because I don't even want it to work." He banged on the side of the blue box, groaning. "I hate this sort of thing. I hate this sort of decision. If we go back, a little boy dies, and a lot of people will never even be born. All those people out there, who had lives and loves and loss of their own… just gone."

"But they were never supposed to be here, like you said."

He turned to look at her, to appreciate that green in her eyes again, and then he had to look away. "Yeah. Like you. Never meant to be born. But unique. And necessary."

She snorted. "Right."

"I mean that." He wished he could explain it to her, but everything was jumbled up in his head. It was mixed up with his sense of the timeline diminishing, with his fear for Rose, with his reluctance to go back in time and see to the death of a child.

Grace watched him, waiting for something, and when he said nothing she prompted him. "Well, since your ship is dead, and we lose anyway, tell me something."

"What?"

"If time is so set in stone, if it's so unable to change, why does anything matter?"

"Not just anything matters – _everything_ matters."

"But how?"

"Everything you do matters, Grace. Everything. I know it's hard to understand when you live a life like you did, but _you_ matter. _They_ matter. I have lived a very long time and I can promise you that you matter. I think you should have a chance to live. I wish I could give that to you – and not this life, not this life without your father, and with all of this going on. A proper life. I want that for you. You are extraordinary. You deserve… a chance."

She smiled at him, stepping closer, until he could pick out darker particles in her pale eyes. Her mind was running quickly again.

Her expression became somber, and sweet, and lonely.

"Do you think it'll hurt?"

He felt a sheen of glass slide over his eyes. He found himself thinking, fleetingly, of death on many occasions, because his life as a time traveler brought up hard questions all the time. He had suffered deadly blows in his life, but regeneration spared him the final product – _would_ it hurt?

"I hope not."

"You know, I always thought this life was wrong." She wrapped her arms around his neck, linking her hands behind his head, looking at the deep scars in her arms. "I thought how can a life be so messed up? I wanted to be something else, _someone_ else. I thought I was crazy until I met you."

He had nothing to say. He couldn't find the words.

"But I never thought I was supposed to be _nothing_." Her eyes watered, and a single tear ran down her cheek. "If by some miracle this all turned out alright, and the world went back to how it was supposed to be, and I was never born, and you landed here just fine with everything all perfect and horrible, would you remember me?"

"I don't think I could forget you, even if I wanted to."

She sighed, leaning into him, holding tightly for a moment with her head resting on his shoulder. He wrapped her into his arms as well, letting himself get lost in the moment, if this was going to be his last moment. He was terrible at saying goodbye, so he let the silence grow. He kept all of his questions to himself – whatever she was, wherever she came from, and however she had gotten those stunning eyes, seemed irrelevant now.

Grace pulled away suddenly, cocking her head like she was listening. Her eyes ventured behind him, to the TARDIS, and then she smiled sadly.

"I said I wanted to be something else. I wished for it every night. I thought I could not be this useless person who never helped anyone, who only thought of herself, who missed her daddy so much that she would lose the person she had been before he was gone."

The Doctor had little time to wonder what she was talking about.

She kissed his cheek.

He felt a rush of energy and the leaves on Gallifrey came back to him. In one beautifully and terribly tragic moment, he felt his old sun beating down on him, and his old wind rushing past him. He had not felt this young, this unburdened, in a very long time.

Grace captivated him for a long moment, smiling against his skin. When she drew away she met his eyes again, her own sparkling.

"I wish I really had been born," she murmured. "So I could see you again."

She suddenly seemed like the warmest thing in the universe – the sweetest, the most beautiful. But she was moving away from him, moving around him. He turned to follow her, with no other choice in the matter, but she placed her hand in the center of his chest.

Grace stepped backward into the TARDIS, and the console whirred to life behind her. Her eyes burned like stars. She smiled at him, a terrible, longing smile.

"I promise not to dent it."

With that, the doors slammed shut, and for a moment the Doctor stood there, staring at them. She breathed life into the TARDIS like nothing he had ever seen.

But it occurred to him what was happening, and his wondering was cut short. He banged on the doors, circled it, tried to wretch the handles open. His key did nothing. It wouldn't turn the lock. He was being kept out by his own ship.

"Grace!"

His last appeal. He stood against the doors, listening for the sound of her inside.

"We can find another way! Come out! Grace! Don't do this! It doesn't have to be like this!"

It faded beneath him and he found himself on the ground. It was too late. She was gone.

He sat alone where the TARDIS had been, with the forest glitching and fading all around him, and he felt more alone than he had in a very long time. He had no energy to wonder how she had brought the ship back to life, or how her eyes had burned that way, or what she could possibly be, to possess so much power. He only had the energy to think about her resetting the past, and deleting herself from the universe.

She knew what would happen.

She knew she would not survive.

She was a hero who had never been born.


	9. Time Walker

**Chapter 9.**

 **Time Walker.**

When the wheezing stopped, she assumed she had arrived.

It was cold outside, with proper snow on the ground. Grace barely noticed it crunching underfoot. Her mind was still back there with the Doctor, where she wished she could have stayed. She would have liked a life with him. He was clever and kind, and he thought she deserved to live. It was more than most people had ever thought of her.

But if he was going to live, she had to do this, and doing this meant she would never really meet him. It was a terrible thing, but necessary, because a man like that had to live on.

Grace barely recognized the world she stepped into. She was on Oak Street, like her grandfather had said, but it was much more rural than she had ever seen it. It was a real neighborhood, with mailboxes and parallel streets. She wandered around, enjoying the serenity and looking for the dry riverbed her Grandad had fallen into – and getting strange looks from the locals. It was the same area she had grown up in, but radically different. It was peaceful. It was bright.

He had shown her photos of it when she was a child, before everything had spiraled downhill, before her father had gone missing, and her mother moved them into the shadows, and before Ray had touched her life. She remembered never thinking much of them because she never thought they were real. Just fantasy. Just pictures, like in the storybooks.

It would have been nice to stay here, where the air was thinner, and the mailboxes all stood in lines, and the lovely people of the past were not starving or dying or crying.

But she spotted the riverbed.

His little blue box was deadly accurate.

Grace came to the top of a bridge, spying a scene playing out on the embankment, above the crinkled mud and dead leaves of winter. A little boy with red hair and pale cheeks lay unconscious, and a thin brown-haired man huddled over him, giving him chest compressions and talking rapidly.

It was the event.

It was already happening.

Grace jumped the railing and slid down the opposite bank, hopping over the mud. She staggered, but managed to gather herself to tackle the skinny man.

He went down without a challenge.

Grace pinned him by his shoulders.

He looked completely surprise, utterly and completely shocked, and then he smiled. It was a brilliant sort of smile. "Grace!"

Had they met before?

She kept him pinned, hard, though he didn't try to get away. "You're not supposed to be here! What are you doing? Who are you?"

He laughed, absolutely tickled, until he looked at the lifeless boy. "Oh. _Oh._ Oh, well, this is embarrassing. Wow. I really mucked things up at this point, huh? You would think I would be more cautious, but no, running on instinct."

"Who the hell _are you_?"

He grinned at her, something painfully familiar in his eyes. "New face. Sorry. It's me. The Doctor. I got a bit more hair this time, and look at the _chin_ , right?"

Grace stumbled off of him, trying to reconcile this odd, skinny, jumpy man with the one she had seen less than an hour ago, on a shimmering, dying version of Earth. She denied it outright at first, but the more she looked at him, the more she watched him, the more she absorbed that lively smile of his, the clearer it became.

But how was that possible?

"Long story, regeneration, blah blah." He got to his feet and bounced a little, straightening his royal purple bowtie. "What do you think? Not too bad, right?"

Grace was at a loss.

"I know you're probably wondering about a lot of things, but you don't have to worry. You and I will be very good friends one day." He was positively gleeful. "Oh… You. You, you, you, _you_ – my _Grace_! I know we're all post-great-sacrifice and everything right now, and I don't want to cheapen what you did, because that was the bravest thing I've ever seen, but you and I… well, spoilers, but I'll see you around."

He walked up to her like he had known her his whole life, wrapped her in a sweet, friendly hug, and then turned and climbed out of the ravine.

Grace went for the other side, catching him on the bridge. "Wait! Explain this to me."

"I would. I really want to. But I don't want to ruin it for you." He grew more serious, and his eyes grew older. It was suddenly a lot easier to believe he was the same man. "It is going to be spectacular, I promise, but you have to go the long way 'round. Soon your timeline will reset and you'll wake up at home, and everything will be all good and well. I'll be there – of course I will – but you have to keep this between us. You can't tell me about this. Leave it a mystery. I love all your mysteries."

She stayed where she was, letting him walk away this time. He headed back toward town, and she could hear him mumbling under his breath. "My _Grace_!"

He turned just within earshot and pointed at her very seriously. "And don't you dare seduce me!"

Grace laughed. He was so odd and out of place. What had she gotten herself into, befriending a man like that? Her mind had been flooded before, filled with complicated fears about losing herself when she fixed the past, but now she found peace. The Doctor made it sound like she had a future after all. He spoke as if he knew, and she trusted him – after knowing him for a day, she trusted him. What kind of person could incite such faith?

She felt the world shimmer around her as the seconds wore on. She had come here thinking she would fade away into nothing, like the people in the streets in Johnston Dome, but now she had no idea what might happen. The Doctor seemed to think she would wake up at home and that everything would be alright, so she let herself hope for that.

She took a seat on the bridge, looking down at the fading boy and wishing things could have been different. She would lose her dad, after all. She would lose Dalton. But the world would be better off, and it was worth it – or she told herself it was worth it, even if secretly, selfishly, she wanted it to stay the way it was.

Grace began to feel light, and the world around her brightened until there was nothing left but a vast white sheet, fluttering against some imaginary wind.

She heard a voice thundering in her head, but the words were unclear, and the more she strained to hear it, the more distorted it became.

She felt a heat like a fire inside, and saw a flash of green.

And then she woke up.


	10. Antebellum

**Chapter 10.**

 **Antebellum.**

Everything changed in the blink of an eye. It was like the confusing period after a war, when the soldiers realized they were no longer supposed to be fighting. It was coming back into the world after a devastating fever, feeling it break for the first time in what felt like eternity.

One moment he was standing in an empty forest, with everything fading around him, getting sucked into the oblivion of non-existence, and then he was on a residential street.

Suddenly the world seemed alright again.

The Doctor could feel the timeline settling into its normal groove, a record player needle gently bumping into place and continuing the same old song. His TARDIS was right in front of him, like he had simply stepped out of it and onto this very normal residential street, in the middle of a normal neighborhood, but it was so much more complicated than that.

Grace Shaw was gone.

She had succeeded in correcting the timeline by giving up her own future. She did it for the betterment of her species, and the survival of the universe. But it left a hollow spot in his heart. She was young, and spirited – what a life she could have had!

He tucked the stinging pain away and focused on the present. Rose was bound to be somewhere in this neighborhood. He hoped she was in the street, and not in someone's living room, or stuck in a wall. The Doctor swept the whole block, calling for her and keeping a careful eye out for a flash of blonde hair between the houses. He got a few funny looks but no one seemed to want to address his obvious insanity.

He caught sight of her on a dead end road, which backed up to a private academy. She was inspecting the sign like a proper detective, still wearing those hilarious shorts with the words across the bum, looking wholly out of place in this very prestigious neighborhood.

When she saw him, she gave him this lovely smile that just enveloped the pain, and chased it all away. She met him with a hug, wrapping him up tight, and laughed.

"What a day, huh?" He spoke nonchalantly, testing her mood. She could be a lot like her mother sometimes, feigning friendliness when she was really just waiting for him to get close enough to strangle. Of course he would never say that out loud.

Rose snorted. "Some date you are, ditching me like that."

"Well, if we're being honest, I think you had it better."

"I was trapped in a timeless forest! What were _you_ doing all day?"

He had his answer worked out already, had it prepped and ready to deliver, but it never came. He stumbled on it, frowned, and cleared his throat, finding himself at a rare loss for words. "I… uh. I had a friend who died."

Was she his friend? It was hard to tell, after such a short relationship. She was an alien, and good at keeping secrets, and a little bit threatening, but a friend? She could have been.

Rose was very good at sympathy. Her eyebrows drew down and her eyes simmered. "Oh."

"She was at the center of it. She fixed it, but…"

"She never existed."

He nodded. "So you worked it all out, then?"

"I did. Well, we did. I was there with two guys, and a little baby. You can guess what happened to them." She hugged him again, a little reserved this time. "It never gets easier – losing people."

"I know."

Rose had no idea. She genuinely had no idea. But that wasn't her fault. She was nineteen. She had barely lived, barely lost. But when she drew away and looked at him, it seemed that, for the moment, she could understand what it felt like. She was such a caring person. She took his grief and shared it. The Doctor imagined, for a moment, that it had been her lost to the rippling timeline, and that thought was the worst of them all. Rose loved him. He knew that. But what he felt for her was much more complicated.

She insisted they were going to be together forever.

"Hey." Rose tapped his shoulder. "I think I know what would make us both feel better."

"What?"

"It has to do with tiny little coconut drinks."

He smiled. "Does it?"

"Yeah. I think thirty or forty should do it."

"Sounds about right."

The Doctor took her hand, guiding her back to the TARDIS and telling her what had happened in the other timeline. He told her about Grace, and her description came out as a 'frustrating hobbit of a girl.' She told her side as well, omitting a few things around the end, and the Doctor let her. He already knew what must have happened to her friends.

He stopped in the doorway, opening it for her, and lingering in the street. "I want to wander here for a bit, make sure everything came out alright. If you want to stay here, I understand."

"I'm going to change into my pajamas and eat a whole box of crawlers."

"Box of what?"

"Crawlers."

"What?"

" _Crawlers_."

"You mean those spider-donuts we got on Harson?"

"Yeah."

"They're not called that."

"What're they called, then?"

"I don't remember, but it's definitely not that. Crawlers."

Rose smiled. "I can call them what I please, I'm the one bringing about their untimely demise. Want me to save you some?"

"Nah. Don't feel like eating."

"Just feel like wandering?"

The Doctor nodded. It felt like he had failed today – failed to save so many lives. Something else she had said struck him. "You're going to the beach in your pajamas?"

"I was gonna change before we got there, but maybe I will. Probably promotes relaxation. You should try it." She thought on it, smiling, and then her face got a little darker, her voice a little reserved. "Doctor?"

"Yeah?"

"There was, um, something weird, where I was." She twisted her lips, stepping a little into the TARDIS, as if the timeline would rip her back out again. "When everything was gone, and it was just me, there was one thing with me. Horses. Wooden horses. Eleven of them."

The Doctor frowned. This information seemed random. It didn't raise any red flags. "Why do you think that was?"

"I dunno. I just… thought I should tell you. Go on, do your checking."

The Doctor started his wandering. He was in a colossal neighborhood so he took a sample as he went, making sure he saw the appropriate mail-bots and hovering cars parked up against expensive garage doors. It was all posh, completely different from the corrupted timeline, and rightly so. In this world the humans were in the midst of a war, and some of them, the richest and most privileged among them, had the honor of living in these types of neighborhoods. They were as isolated from reality as possible, right on the edge of a thriving metropolis, living life happily, oblivious to the suffering happening maybe only miles away. It was one of the staples of the human race – sweep it away and forget about it.

It was a bit deplorable, but correct for these humans. The timeline had been mended.

He walked until he saw a cemetery, and paused at the gates to read the dates on the closest headstones – no recent burials. Everything was cremated in this century. Somewhere out there lay the little boy that never should have survived. He was almost tempted to go and look for him, but he didn't even know his full name. He didn't even know if Grace had gone back and killed the boy, or simply told him to keep his head a bit lower down.

It was almost dusk when he thought he should return. He walked up and down several streets, searching for an excuse to linger.

He was about to give in and return to the TARDIS, but one of the names stood out to him.

 _Shaw_.

He took a step toward it, hesitated, and then noticed that the front porch was occupied.

Grace was sitting in the swing.

She looked a little different from the last time he saw her. She was wearing a tank top and her arms were free of scars and tattoos. Her expression was a little softer, but her eyes were still that vivid green, intensely intelligent, and fixated on him.

Could it be wishful thinking, or was he really looking at this impossible girl? She should never had been born. If everything was back to normal, she should not exist.

But there she was, healthy and part of the posh neighborhood.

She got up and came to the edge of the porch, giving him a smile that stunted his thoughts.

"Goodnight, Doctor." Her voice was warm and familiar.

She turned and walked inside.

Both of his hearts skipped a beat. He smiled, elated, forgetting his caution. She was alive! But how could she be alive? She must have been adopted. Her father was not really her father. She must not have known. She must have gotten quite the shock when she woke up in this timeline.

But it was wrong.

No matter what, she should have forgotten her other life. She should not recognize him. How was that possible? Had the TARDIS shielded her from the reset?

Even though these things were critically important, and the weight of them rested on his shoulders, as always, he pushed them aside. He was too caught up in her to think at the moment. He had other responsibilities. Grace was safe, and in a good home, and he would return and figure everything out in due time. He had to know who she was.

He needed to unravel her mysteries.


	11. An Impression

**A/N: This is not a Doctor/Rose story. This is a story about the Doctor, and Rose is listed in the characters (not as a pairing), because she is his companion at this point in the story. Also, the categories it is under are fantasy and adventure, not romance. I'm not going to discount the love he had for Rose, because I love her and I love them together, but the purpose of this story is not to pair the two of them. The Doctor doesn't need romance to be brilliant. If you're looking for cute Doctor/Rose moments, there will be plenty, because Rose is a big part of his life, but that is not the exclusive purpose of this story and I'm sorry if you thought it was. That being said, the chapters following this one will be Rose-centric, as will many to come. She is a companion, and I love her, so she plays a big part in everything.**

 **Chapter 11.**

 **An Impression.**

The Doctor watched the house like it was his job. It kind of _was_ his job, all things considered. It was home to a very peculiar girl who should not have been born. She could do extraordinary things, like bring his TARDIS back to life, and give him fleeting memories of his boyhood, and make him strangely giddy. It was his responsibility to find out what she was and if she was dangerous – and he needed to know exactly what she had done when she went to correct the corrupted timeline. He needed every detail.

He had tried to go back on his own, to look at her childhood and find a clue about her parentage, but the TARDIS bounced away from it like a repelled magnet. She was time-locked. He couldn't land anywhere _near_ her past. And if that was not strange enough, a look in the future gave him no records of her existence beyond this age – _nineteen_. It was like she dropped off the face of the Earth. No children. No tax claims. No property. No news articles. She no longer existed after this.

She was a paradox. She was dangerous by default. It was his duty to find out what was so important about her, that the universe was shutting him out of her past.

But that was, admittedly, low on the list of his reasons for being here. He was watching the quaint little house because he wanted to make sure she had a good life. She had sacrificed so much, so bravely, that she deserved it. He would see to that.

It looked lovely so far. Her mother was in and out, planting flowers and watering rose bushes. She had a few phone conversations with very important people. Grace and her family were obviously very wealthy to live in a prestigious neighborhood like this, so separate from all the polluted factories and battlefields. Four little children ran around in the yard – presumably the brothers that had gone missing in the other reality – and the Doctor noted their features, assuring himself that they looked nothing like Grace. Half-siblings. Her step-father was still a factor, and so his children were still there, but all different ages than before. It seemed that he and her mother were destined to meet and procreate. In this timeline is had just happened a little sooner, so the boys were older.

Grace was the only one missing so far.

"Weird, right?"

The Doctor jumped and drew his screwdriver defensively, finding Grace leaning over the other side of the bench. She was watching the house as well, kneading the edge of the bench through her black, fingerless gloves. It was a wonder she had snuck up on him, looking so out of place.

She came around the bench and sat heavily beside him, motioning dismissively to the house. "I live there. I have a room and everything. In the basement."

"Why in the basement?"

Grace shrugged. "But the weird part is that I don't live there. I never had this. I never had _any_ of this. Look at this place! One level, no slums."

She remembered everything about that world. It was very unusual.

"Okay, no, the really weird part is that I remember this life. I remember both. I remember being raised here, and I remember my mom getting married, and I remember dealing with my jerk hole brothers. But the other life… my real life… I dream of it. I hated it, but I miss it."

"It was what you were familiar with. You have every right to-"

"I don't _want_ to miss it. It sucked. It really, seriously sucked. But I do. It was home, ya know? Dalton was there. Dad was there." She slouched, resting her head on his shoulder like she had known him her whole life, rather than one pitiful day. "Where's your friend? Did you find her?"

She remembered him telling her about Rose.

"Rose? Yeah. She was fine. She wanted to spend a little time with her mum after everything. We sort of had a run in with a mutant shark on a beach filled with tiny little people. Everything turned out alright, but she needed a little break." He took a deep, calming breath, sorting his questions into manageable lists. "I have to ask you… what did you see when you went back in time?"

"I don't remember."

She did innocent very well. She stared into him, disarming him with those beautiful eyes, and then she mucked his whole head up.

He had to look away. "I don't believe you."

Grace groaned, slipping her hand under his and toying with his index finger. She had little regard for personal space. "Okay. I lied. I do remember. But I can't tell you. So you have to let it go."

He was a little distracted by the contact, but his suspicion took over.

"Was it me? Did you see me?"

She smiled. "Now _that_ would be silly. Come and see my room."

"Um, I don't think that's appropriate."

"Stop being dramatic. We're all adults here." She took his hand and dragged him across the street, straight to her front door. She stopped to listen, winking at him, and then she took him inside.

It was the same on the inside as it was on the outside – quaint, homey, and lavishly decorated. The Doctor counted eleven trophies in a cabinet in the hall, none of them for Grace, and dozens of pictures lining every feasible surface. But she was absent from most of them. He saw the four little boys repeated over and over again, with a mum and a dad, but no big sister – the pictures with her in them were just of her and her mother, and never any younger than preschool-aged.

Grace took him through to the back of the house, evading a stream of children and yelling at them to watch where they were running. The Doctor recognized the child he had seen Rose holding in the time ripple. He was a bit older now.

"Where are you in all of this?" The Doctor stood his ground when she tried to keep moving. He dragged her back. "You're not in any of these pictures. Why is that?"

Her cheer was diminished. She leaned in and whispered, "You are very _easily_ distracted."

Now he was even more suspicious, and more eager to find out what was going wrong in this house, but Grace pulled him down the hallway, to the back door, which was nestled into the laundry room. There was a narrow staircase leading straight down into the dark.

"Go on. Watch out for the door at the bottom. I don't want you repeating your stunt with the rock."

The Doctor descended, running his hand along the wall to steady himself. He found a door at the bottom and felt along for a doorknob, and then stepped into a small, heavily carpeted room.

It was not what he had expected from a girl like Grace.

Her room was brightly colored, with pastel walls plastered in pictures of animals – mostly horses – and pink shag carpets. Her bed sat low in the corner with a canopy surrounding it. She had little floor space, but she had jammed a desk and a recliner into it, so only someone as little as her could really navigate it. There was a door on the wall nearby, probably leading out into the split-level backyard. While he tried to figure out how she had gotten the recliner into the room, she danced around him and went to the desk.

"Come here. I want you to see these."

The Doctor fixated on the door. "Don't you worry about that? No lock. What if someone tried to break in and found you down here?"

"Well, then they would have a very bad day. Come here!"

He groaned, struggling to join her by the desk. He almost knocked the chair over on his way. She bounced a little beside him, laying the papers out so he could look at them all.

They were sketches.

It was his face. He was there, over and over again, drawn in different depths, with different mediums and colors and techniques – a couple for every year of her life. He could track her progress, from the rudimentary attempt at his eyes to the intense portrait at the end. It was a perfect rendition of his expression after she had left him, when she took the TARDIS and almost wiped herself out of existence.

Her memories were powerful. Not only had they managed to stay intact for the reset, but she seemed to have every detail nailed down. Her mind was certainly not human.

Grace ran her finger over the most detailed picture, which had an incomplete corner. "I barely remember drawing some of them. I have glimpses of it – when I was little I had dreams about you. I think. Maybe. It gets blurry sometimes. But you obviously made an impression."

"I see that."

"Is it creepy? It is, right?"

" _Well_ …"

They shared a smile. He was honored to have remained in her thoughts. She had stayed in his as well, but for him it had only been a few days, and for her, a lifetime.

Grace stacked the papers back up, taking special care to clip them together and store them in her desk. She patted the recliner. "Sit down."

"I really should-"

"You have something else to say." Grace patted the chair again, and then went to her bed. She sprawled across it and started picking pieces out of a box of chocolates. "You look very serious. So just sit down and let it out."

She was still just as perceptive as she had been in the other timeline, with even less regard for personal space. It was hard to hide anything with those seafoam eyes on him. But did he really want to hide anything from her? Something about her blunt look at life made him want to be honest, and therein lie the danger. He still knew hardly anything about her, other than she was alien, potentially ancient, and clever – she had outwitted him once already.

He was caught between wanting very desperately to trust her, and locking away his secrets.

He sat in the recliner and released the footstool, leaning back until he was almost lying flat. He got a good look at her room from that angle – she had a bookshelf stuffed to its limit in the corner under the desk, a heavily covered window that must have led to the backyard, and three dozen empty chocolate boxes hidden under her bed, along with a hefty stash of other sweets. Her shelves were dotted with anatomically correct models of otherworldly monsters, and there were a few stunning, perhaps hand carved wooden horses standing out amongst the clutter. Rose's words came back to him, and his eyes lingered there for a moment. Puzzle pieces. But what kind of picture were they trying to make?

Grace focused on the chocolates, like having a strange man in her bedroom was nothing new.

His eyes came to her last. He measured the little changes in her face, wondering what she was thinking, and how much she knew about the universe. She appeared intelligent, but the way she acted shrouded it. She was very odd, even in this version of the world.

"I got here this morning." He reached across to take a chocolate from the corner. Her outraged expression made him laugh. "I can tell your whole family is perfectly human. But _you_ … Not you."

"You said that before."

"But you _knew_. I saw it in your eyes. So what are you?"

Grace shrugged, taking a bite out of a chocolate and then putting it back, disgusted. "Ugh. Cherry. Who puts cherry in a chocolate?" Strangely, she went for it again, taking little nibbles until it was gone. She made a sour face. "You need to work on your phrasing, by the way. _What am I?_ Really?"

He smiled, unable to help himself. "You enjoy being frustrating, don't you?"

Grace got up on her knees and leaned over the arm of his chair, which was really only a few inches from her bed. She got very close, until their noses could have touched, and her eyes sparkled mischievously. "I thought you loved my mysteries."

"I never said that."

She sat back, shrugging. He caught a little guilt in her.

The Doctor laughed despite himself. "You're having too much fun with this."

"I really don't know, though. What I am. Who I am. I never met my dad. I mean, the biological one. In this world my mom never told me about him. In the other one… well, she told me a lie."

"She was just trying-"

"If you say she was trying to protect me, I'll throw this at your head, and it's got one good pointy corner that could take out an eye." Grace raised the box threateningly, waiting a moment before going on. "Lying doesn't protect kids. It just gives them hope, and then it gets taken away later on. It just hurts more, and you lose trust."

It was a touchy topic. He reminded himself to steer clear of it.

Grace held the box out to him, letting him pick his own as long as it wasn't one of the ones in the middle. She jerked it away when he tried. "What do you think I am, Doctor?"

"Certainly not human. No." He caught her wrist and she leaned over the chair again. He got another good look at her eyes, shaking his head, pretending he was doing something very scientific when he was really just gazing. "Other humanoid races exist, but nothing like you."

"And what am I like?"

Like the trees of Gallifrey in the summer, with the sky poking out behind them, and a warm breeze rolling over the grasses. Like home. Like a lifetime ago. Like a foggy memory in a narrow glass, distorted and far away, and then suddenly so clear that it gave the soul pause.

He answered without thinking.

" _Beautiful_."

Grace scanned his face. "What do you see when you look at me?"

"I see…" He could have been honest. It was an opportunity that he missed. "Uh, sorry. I meant your eyes. I mean, they're unique. Unique is what I meant to say."

She laughed – at him, not with him – and slid back onto her bed. She could have pushed the point, but she let it go. "So you've never met an alien with green eyes?"

"There are loads of aliens with green eyes – some aliens that are _just_ green eyes – but nothing like that. Never so pale. And there was something else. When you walked into the TARDIS they glowed, like you were made of light. And how did you fly the TARDIS? It was dead, and when you walked in it just sprung to life. How did you do that? How did you know it would happen?"

"I heard it whispering." Grace squirmed a little, playing with the hem of her jean shorts. "We were standing there, and I heard it… calling me."

The Doctor was blown away by that. He knew his ship had a soul, but she had never spoken to him before. What was so special about Grace? What kind of creature could commune with something as ancient and powerful as the TARDIS? What kind of creature would the TARDIS literally call out to? It was fascinating, but he couldn't find the words to ask her about it.

Grace saw him struggling. She sat on the edge of the bed and grew more serious. "I just knew… I knew what to do. I can't explain it. I still don't understand it. But that's the truth."

"Thank you. I suppose we might never know."

She twisted her lips. "Is there any chance I can convince you to… stay the night?"

He blanched, clearing his throat to hide his surprised yelp. "Um, I think that might be… I should probably…"

Grace laughed, enjoying his suffering, and waved him off. "Easy tiger. I was kidding. Besides, you told me not to seduce you."

"When did I say that? And I didn't think it was funny, by the way."

"It was a joke at your expense, so I would think not." She got up, stopping him before he could leave the recliner. "Wait. I have a few hours to spare before I have to go to bed – I go to University in this world, you know. I'm studying biology. Don't know why, but whatever."

He thought he should go, because his will was growing weaker. He was too enthralled with this girl to think straight. But she seemed very desperate to keep him there, and he had a strong desire to please her, especially so soon after she had sacrificed everything to fix this world. Besides, if he could make her comfortable and get her talking, he could gauge how happy she was with this life, and soothe that nagging fear in his stomach.

So he reclined his chair all the way and told her about the black sand beaches he and Rose had visited, recounting it like a true storyteller. Grace sat up in bed for a while, listening, bursting into laughter at inappropriate moments, or scouring for another snack among the covers. As the night wore on she settled down with a pillow, curling up under her comforter and watching him through the haze of exhaustion.

When he finished one story, he found himself jumping into the next. He didn't want to let the night end. Grace grew so still sometimes he thought she had fallen asleep, but then she would tilt her head and rest her eyes on him with a big, lovely, sleepy smile. She urged him on into the wee hours of the night, past whatever bedtime she might have assigned herself.

She wanted to hear about everything, from the mundane to the terrifying, and she provided a running commentary on some of the most incredible things he had ever encountered. She wanted to know why, and how, and with whom. She even told some stories of her own, recounting events from her childhood in the corrupted timeline and comparing them to what she had experienced here. She was articulate and intelligent, with an underlying kindness that was occasionally clouded by her innate grumpiness. Despite that, she was charming. She was lively. She was excitable.

But he got the impression she was holding something back.

"How is your life here? Is it better?"

Grace stretched, yawned, and snuggled into her pillow. "I think anything would be better than before." She dodged the question perfectly, as she would have in the other reality.

He chose a gentle tone. "You can tell me, you know."

She took a deep, deep breath. "It's been three days since everything happened. But I guess you didn't know that, did you? Time traveler and all."

"I knew that."

"It gets so quiet down here. I keep thinking, you know, in the other world, at least I was never alone. I always had someone. But it's much worse now."

"I'm sorry. I wanted it to be better for you this time around."

Grace sniffled, appearing conflicted for a moment, and then her voice came out in a whisper. "I wish it had really been like that – I wish I had never been born."

Her tone broke his hearts. He hated to see such an otherwise bubbly person in such a state of sorrow. And for her it was not just a dramatic statement, but a real possibility, something that both of them had believed would happen.

"Don't say that."

"I know, I know. What a horrible thing to say. I know. But I wanted to convince you to stay, and I knew that… the truth would do it." She smiled faintly. "It gets so quiet down here alone, and cold. I want you to stay because you're the opposite of that."

"I'm loud and warm?"

Grace grinned. "Something like that."

He had a nagging feeling she was being purposefully pitiful to get to him, using his empathy as a weapon. And it was working. She must have known how badly he wanted to trust her. And what reason did he have not to, at this point? She was just a university student, raised in the suburbs, who happened to be an unidentifiable species of alien. He had no room to discriminate. She knew very little about him, too.

"What do you see when you look at me?" Grace repeated her earlier question, propping her elbow under her head.

He had another chance to be honest, and he blew it.

"I see… a friend, maybe."

"No. It's more than that. I see it in your eyes every now and then. It's like you get lost. But it's okay. You don't have to tell me. But I'll tell you what I see when I look at you – I see the only person who has ever cared whether I live or die."

"That's not true-"

"Doctor, there are billions of people on this planet. Billions and billions. I know ten of them. I have no father, and barely any family. I'm not being dramatic. I'm just telling you what it's like. And I'm not depressed or anything. I accept it. I always have – in both lives. But I never thought… It just never occurred to me that someone _might_ care. But I think it's supposed to be this way, because honestly, I'm a terrible person. I cheat. I'm loud. I'm mean. I can be vicious. I'm selfish. And I think you see that. But you just…" She sighed, running out of words.

"I just what?"

"I hope you won't hold all that against me."

He smiled, understanding her for once. "I won't."

"We can be friends, then."

"I would like that very much."

He lay awake through the early hours of the morning, watching her slowly fade into sleep, and wondering what kind of dreams she had. She could talk to the TARDIS, after all. Did that mean she was tapped into the time vortex?

He spent the silence considering what he would do about this girl. After what she said, he couldn't imagine letting her stay on Earth. If she really had nothing tethering her, her life would me miserable, and he wanted to avoid that. He was already quite fond of her, but he didn't trust her. What would Rose think of him bringing her along? He had no right to ask that of her. It was just supposed to be the two of them, and Grace could put his friend in danger.

But the questions remained, and the only way to answer them would be to spend more time with her. What was she? Was she dangerous? What role did she play in his future?


	12. The Tricky Thing

**Chapter 12.**

 **The Tricky Thing.**

"You alright?"

The Doctor looked up, shutting down his thoughts of Grace to bring himself into the present. Rose was concerned. She had her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. It would have been an intimidating posture had she been wearing something other than a bright pink dress with frills all at the bottom.

"Oh, sorry. Where were we?"

"You were saying you wanted to go someplace special."

"Oh, right."

He vaguely remembered saying that. It was their first outing since the mutant shark shenanigans and he wanted to go someplace thrilling, without the danger. He chose New York City, when a controversial rock star was stirring a conservative nation and challenging ideas about music and expressive freedom. It was also a lovely time for all sorts of little shops, and doing a little browsing was sure to take his mind off of his situation.

She gave a sly smile. "And you were _just_ about to tell me where."

"Really don't think I was." The Doctor grinned at her foiled face. "It's a surprise. But you'll love it, I promise." He input the date very carefully, and spun the location dial until he was in the proximity. New York was a big place and there was plenty of room for error. As long as he ended up somewhere within the city limits, he would be satisfied.

Rose went to sit on the cushioned seats, resting her legs across them. "Is this one of those surprises where you get the location _and_ the time completely wrong."

"I'll get both of them at least partially right."

"I'm warnin' you now, there better not be any Cybermen. And no mutant sharks. No time ripples."

"No Cybermen. No Mutant sharks. No time ripples. Want to add anything else?"

Rose thought a moment, and then added, "No disco! Mum has this weird disco exercise thing going and I spent the whole weekend seeing things I'll never be able to get out of my head."

"Got it. No disco. How does Elvis sound?"

"I thought it was gonna be a surprise!"

"I feel like I need approval now, with all these rules."

"Sounds incredible." Rose hopped down and circled him, her eyes narrowed, showing a concerning amount of perceptiveness. "Why are you so jumpy?"

"I'm not jumpy. How am I jumpy?"

"Maybe jumpy wasn't the word, but you're something… is it guilty? Did you go somewhere without me?"

"What? No!"

" _Doctor_."

He groaned, slipping back to take her seat. "Not _really_."

Rose stared him down, and he got the impression she might start shooting lasers.

"Okay, I did. But not really anywhere. It was here. Earth. I went back to 2558. Or forward, I suppose. Semantics, am I right?"

Rose sat beside him. "And what did you do there?"

She seemed to already know the answer to that question. He had told her about seeing Grace on her porch after the timeline reset. She knew he was curious.

"I, uh, may have seen Grace."

"Oh. _Seen_ her?"

"No! Not like that. I want to know who changed the timeline – and, of course, she wouldn't tell me. She never answers questions. It's like talking to the human version of a magic eight ball."

Rose wrinkled her nose, reading more into his words than she should have. "Oh, Doctor, you have got to get better at lying!"

"For your information, I'm an excellent liar. But I'm not lying right now."

"Look at you blushing!"

"I am not!"

"I like seeing you all flustered. It's rare."

"It's annoying is what it is. She basically kept me prisoner there all night."

"No matter. If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to. But remember, I had you first."

"Really, nothing happened."

"Sure it didn't."

" _Rose_."

She giggled, enjoying tormenting him. It was something she had in common with Grace. He was starting to think all women were that way.

The Doctor chose to ignore her jabs. "But you know what really got me? She made it seem like _I_ was the one who saved her Grandad. I think she saw _me_ , Rose. In the future. Future me."

"She saw future you when she went to the past?"

"I think so.

"New face?"

He shrugged. "I would have told her not to tell me. Of course I would have! I would have done that, knowing that me, from now – _this_ me – would want to know."

Rose laughed. "So what you're saying is, you're irritating _yourself_ now?"

"Essentially."

"But why would you mess up the timeline? You know what that causes."

"The tricky thing about time travel is that it could have been me from a year later, or from a thousand years later. We might never know. I mean, I'll _know_ , of course, because it was _me_ , but I don't know when I'll know."

"Maybe we should bring her along with us."

The Doctor lost his train of thought – no, it crashed. It crashed into a brick wall. He had thought about that, and the answer came out immediately. "No."

Rose cocked an eyebrow at his tone. "Oh, alright, then."

"She could be dangerous."

"I'm used to it. If you want her along, bring her."

If it had just been him, traveling along, he would have done just that. He wanted to keep an eye on her, to try and work out what she was, and what she was doing on Earth, and how she had powered his TARDIS, and how she remembered the corrupted timeline. But he was also suspicious of her, and he was usually very trusting. He had a bad feeling that made him reject the idea. Rose was too precious to risk. He would continue investigating Grace, but only when Rose was not around.

Rose watched him, trying to decide what he was thinking. "You think I wouldn't like her?"

"No. Not that. I think you might like her too much, and the two of you would decide you didn't need me." He went to the console and started up the engines, whacking a switch when it threatened to flip back into its inactive state. It was a rebellious bit of machinery. He wanted to quell Rose's concerns, so he added, "Besides, then I would be outnumbered."

She followed him, watching his movements, a little bounce in her step. He always enjoyed it when she was this happy. "You might be right on that."

When the TARDIS landed, the Doctor lingered. He wondered if Rose really wanted Grace to join them, or if it was a ploy to size up the competition. Was she tired of it just being the two of them? Was she as curious as he was about the girl? Did she want someone her own age to spend time with? Or was she just trying to please him, by assuming it was what he wanted?

"Doctor?"

He looked up, finding her waiting by the door, smiling.

"Oh, sorry. I'm coming."

"If you want to bring her along, I'm okay with it. Just saying."

He had already decided not to, but he nodded anyway. "Got it."

Rose pulled the doors open. "Come on, then. Mysteries await."

The Doctor watched her step out, watched the sunlight illuminate that lovely pink dress of hers, and that lovely smile, and tried to push all the puzzle pieces away for the moment. Wooden horses and snowy forests and an out of place alien girl – he was missing something. He had to be. But until he had more information, it was going to have to wait.

Hers was not the only mystery in the universe.


	13. The Idiot's Lantern

**Chapter 13.**

 **The Idiot's Lantern.**

"I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era. You know, the white flares and chest hair."

He could not let that stand. The Doctor rested his scooter against the TARDIS door and popped his head out, frowning at Rose. "You are kidding, aren't you? You wanna see Elvis, you go for the '50s. The time before burgers! When they called him 'The Pelvis' and he still had a waist!"

Rose giggled.

The Doctor secured his helmet and revved the scooter up, bursting through the door as dramatically as he could manage. "What's more, you see him in style!" He made an arch around Rose and gave her his best Elvis lip. "You going my way, doll?"

Rose threw her sunglass on, jumping into character. "Is there any other way to go, daddy-o? Straight from the fridge, man!"

There was hope for her yet. "Hey, you speak the lingo!"

She hopped on behind him, throwing her arms around his waist and leaning against his shoulder. "Yeah, well, me and Mum, Cliff Richard movies every Bank Holiday Monday."

Now the hope was gone again. "Cliff! I knew your mother would be a Cliff fan."

He set off down the alley, enjoying the sensation of driving. It had been a while since he had driven anything but the TARDIS – and when he drove it tended to be more of an organized crash. He liked to let other people take the wheel so he could look at the scenery.

Rose squeezed his waist with both arms. "Where we off to?"

"Ed Sullivan TV Studios! Elvis did Hound Dog on one of the shows. There were loads of complaints. Bit of luck, we'll just catch it."

"And that would be the TV studios in, what, New York?"

"That's the one!"

The Doctor slowed the scooter as a trolley passed in front of them. He began to doubt how accurate his location was. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to that dial.

Rose noticed as well. "Digging that New York vibe!"

He set his feet down, catching their weight on the right side. "Well… this could still be New York. I mean, this looks very New York to me." He grimaced at the Union flags hung on every wall and around every window. "London-y New York, mind, but…"

Rose sounded mystified. "What are all the flags for?"

The Doctor drove on, and every turn they took reaffirmed that they were in London. He had completely missed the mark – missed it by a whole ocean. He was surprised he had even gotten the planet right. Rose barely minded. She stared around, in awe of the recent past, and wondered aloud what family members she might encounter, even though she knew how much that bugged him. She started predicting which streets they would hit, and then giving an excited squeal when she was right, as if she was proving over and over again that _he_ was wrong.

He took them to a residential area, where the road was lined with brownstones. Children played little games in the street and stared open-mouthed at their vehicle. He regretted not having a scooter that fit the decade a little better. His next closest was too old to be of any use.

Rose tapped his arm. "Pull over up here! We can do some snooping, ask about the flags."

The Doctor pulled up to the curb and cut the scooter off, remaining seated while Rose got off and looked around. He spoke to himself. "I swear I spun the dial seven times… or was it seventy?"

His companion hung on a light pole. "That's enough sulking. Come on!"

They had arrived in a quiet neighborhood, with hardly anyone outside. The flags persisted, decorating every doorway and arch. Down the road, a delivery van was parked, and two men were hauling away a television set. The Doctor headed for it, pointing it out to Rose. "Look, locals! If they have New York accents, you owe me an apology."

Rose laughed, nudging him. "And if they're just normal Londoners?"

They reached the van before he answered, and he caught the tail-end of a conversation. The deliveryman was talking about some kind of great occasion – in a London accent, unfortunately.

"Great occasion?" The Doctor stepped alongside them. "What do you mean?"

The deliveryman looked at him like he had just descended from the sky. "Where have you been living, out in the colonies? The coronation, of course!"

Coronation. He had been to his share of those. "And what coronation's that, then?"

Again, he got a strange look. The deliveryman looked between him and Rose, and he seemed to be wondering if the Doctor was joking. "What do you mean? _The_ coronation."

Rose perked up, touching his arm. "It's the Queen's!"

The Doctor looked at her now, frowning.

She was very pleased with herself. "Queen Elizabeth!"

Finally, it clicked. His head was malfunctioning today. "Oh! Is this _1953_?" What a year! Now he felt better about landing in the wrong place. England was just coming out of the shadow of a terrible war, rebuilding itself and trying to become something bigger and brighter than before.

The deliveryman nodded to his question. "Last time I looked, yeah. Time for a lovely bit of pomp and circumstance. What we do best."

Rose got his attention. She was looking around, frowning. "Look at all the TV aerials. Looks like everyone's got one."

She was right. Every chimney had one.

"That's weird. My mum said tellies were so rare, they all had to pile into one house."

The deliveryman responded to her, but the Doctor stopped listening. He roamed down the street, smiling, recalling all of his favorite things about this time and place. "Oh, but this is a brilliant year, classic! Technicolor! Everest climbed! Everything off the ration!" He crossed back to them, winking at Rose. "A nation throwing off the shackles of war and looking forward to a happier, brighter future."

She laughed, forgetting whatever had worried her.

And then came the cry from down the road.

"Someone help me, please! Ted!"

The Doctor responded to his instincts and ran toward the cries, toward a car sitting idle in the road. The woman was coming out of one of the houses, pursuing several men who dragged a covered victim toward their car. It looked like a kidnapping, but the car was a police car, and the men had titles and ranks in their collars. What on Earth was going on?

His wife was screaming. "Leave him alone! Ted! _Ted_!"

When the Doctor made it to them, he demanded, "What's going on?"

A boy came from the house across the street, "Oi! What are you doing?"

One of the abductors addressed them, using a routine voice like he had performed a hundred kidnappings that week and it was nothing new to him. "Police business. Get out of the way, sir."

Rose questioned the boy. "Who did they take? Do you know him?"

The boy panted. "Must be Mr. Gallagher."

They got the hooded figure into the car, and then drove off, tires squealing with the sudden speed.

The boy looked grim and afraid. "It's happening all over the place. They're turning into monsters."

 _Monsters_.

A man came from the house across the street, waving angrily at the boy. He had a sheepish woman crowding behind him in the doorway. "Tommy! Not one word. Get inside now!"

The boy, Tommy, gave one last look at the departing car, and then jogged back to his family. "Sorry. I better do as he says."

 _Monsters._

The Doctor ran for the scooter, throwing on his helmet. He shouted "All aboard!" at Rose, and as soon as she was in her seat, he hit the gas.

He pursued the car around several corners, making a sharp turn that nearly threw his companion off, and then, at the last turn, almost as soon as the chase had begun, they came upon a dead end. The Doctor stopped in the middle of an alley, perplexed. It was like the car had just vanished.

"Lost them. How did they get away from us?"

Rose was ruffled. "I'm surprised they didn't turn back and arrest you for reckless driving. Have you actually _passed_ your test?"

The Doctor ignored her question. "Men in black? Vanishing police cars? This is Churchill's England, not Stalin's Russia!"

His companion was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was eerie. "Monsters, that boy said. Maybe we should go and ask the neighbors."

He nodded. "That's what I like about you, the domestic approach."

Rose smiled. "Thank you." When given a moment to consider it, she frowned. "Hold on. Was than an insult?"

The Doctor hit the gas and the scooter jumped forward, silencing her objections. He went back the way they had come, taking a few wrong turns to search for the vanishing car. He really hoped it was the strangest thing they would see that day, but he had a gut feeling that it wouldn't be.

He took them back to the neighborhood and parked on the sidewalk in front of the house where the boy, Tommy, lived. He seemed like the best person to ask.

"Do you have a plan? Like a cover story? Can we do accents?" Rose set her helmet down, fluffing out her hair and giving him a serious look. "If we do characters, I get to be the boss, okay?"

"I figured we would just go up and ring the bell."

"Well, I guess that works too. Less fun though."

He smiled. Rose was very gung-ho about this mystery. It was nice.

He mashed the doorbell and they both waited, smiling, while footsteps approached the door. When the yelling father from before answered, they greeted him with a simultaneous, "Hi!"

He was not in the mood for pleasantries. "Who are you, then?"

The Doctor let his mind work rapidly. "Let's see, judging by the look of you, family man, nice house, decent wage, fought in the war, therefore, I represent Queen and country!" He presented his psychic paper, focusing on very prestigious lettering in an identification signed by the queen herself. "Just doing a check of her forthcoming Majesty's subjects before the great day. Don't mind if we come in? No, I didn't think you did. Thank you."

He pushed his way inside, followed closely by Rose, who appeared amused with his display. The man followed them, perhaps too flabbergasted by that greeting to come up with an answer right away. He followed them down the entry hall.

The Doctor did a quick scan of the living room, finding it to be a very typical 1950s household. It had all the right amenities, with no aliens or mysterious claw marks to be found.

"Not bad, very nice, very well kept." The Doctor approached the woman standing behind the couch. "I'd like to congratulate you, Mrs…?"

"Connolly," she responded sheepishly.

The husband appeared, poking his chest out. "Now then, Rita. I can handle this. This gentleman's a proper representative. Don't mind the wife. She rattles on a bit."

If there was one thing, singularly, that the Doctor despised about humans, it was males who thought themselves at the top of a very steep totem pole. Most of his companions were women – strong, intelligent women he would not have made it very far without – and to have someone think they were better than those women simply because of their gender really pushed his buttons. It pushed his buttons even more now, because this was the type of man who used his status to bully his family. He was cold and authoritative to the people who were supposed to see his warmest side, and warm to people who meant nothing to him in the grand scheme of things.

It was that nearsighted worldview that bugged the Doctor, regardless of the era. He believed that anyone, anywhere, could make decisions for themselves about how they would treat others. It was not a matter of being raised that way, but a matter of having a good soul.

He immediately disliked this man for that, and for his tone toward his wife.

He couldn't help his response.

"Well, maybe she should rattle on a bit more. I'm not convinced you're doing your patriotic duty." He shifted his eyes to a string of flags hanging over a chair. "Those flags, why are they not flying?"

Mr. Connolly, like a true champion of this age, immediately shifted the blame onto his wife. He snapped at her. "There we are, Rita. I told you. Get them up. Queen and country."

Rita looked at the Doctor. Her expression was one of a woman who had spent a long time being shut down and overruled by her husband. "I'm sorry."

"Get it done. Do it now," her husband ordered.

The Doctor put his hand up gently to the wife, stopping her apology and crossing the living room to approach the husband. "Hold on a minute."

"Like the gentleman says-" the husband tried to intervene.

"Hold on a minute."

Tommy stood in the corner, giving him a deer-in-headlights look. He had probably never seen anyone talk to his father with anything but the utmost respect. Rita was looking at the floor. Rose appeared ready to say something herself.

The Doctor could see he wouldn't get anywhere while this man was hovering. "You've got hands, Mr. Connolly. Two big hands. Then why is that your wife's job?"

Mr. Connolly looked confused. "Well, it's housework, innit?"

"And that's a woman's job?" the Doctor pressed.

"Course it is."

He was incredibly thick. "Mr. Connolly, what gender is the _queen_?"

The man was not following him. "She's a female."

"And are you suggesting the Queen does the housework?"

Mr. Connolly looked around himself like he had just unintentionally committed treason. It was a direct challenge to his strange sense of pride. "No, not at all!"

The Doctor picked up the string of flags and handed them over. "Then get busy."

Mr. Connolly bundled them into his hands. "Right. Yes, sir. You'll be proud of us, sir! We'll have Union Jacks left, right, and center!"

Rose stood, perhaps no longer having the patience to sit still. "Excuse me, Mr. Connolly. Hang on a minute. Union Jacks?"

Despite the fact that he was addressing a girl, he sounded deeply respectful, even cautious. The Doctor attributed it to how fierce Rose looked. "Yes, that's right, isn't it?

Rose did not look at the floor, like Mrs. Connolly, but stared the man down while she spoke. "That's the Union flag. It's the Union Jack only when it's flown at sea."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I do apologize."

"Well, don't get it wrong again. That's a good man. Now get to it!"

Rose looked back at him, biting her lip, obviously excited that she got to scold the man. He felt a glimmer of pride for how confident she had become. She was downright dangerous.

"Right, then." He sunk into the couch. "Nice and comfy. At her Majesty's leisure!"

Rose sat beside him.

"Union flag?" he asked under his breath.

Rose smiled. "Mum went out with a sailor."

He chuckled, continuing under his breath. "I bet she did." He raised his voice, looking at Rita and Tommy. "Anyway, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose. And you are?"

Tommy cleared his throat. "Tommy."

"Well, sit yourself down, Tommy." He scooted over, patting the seat between him and Rose. When he came to sit down, they both shifted sideways. The Doctor leaned in to focus on the program on their television, smiling. "Have a look at this. I love telly, don't you?"

Tommy was smiling. "Yeah, I think it's brilliant."

"Good man." The Doctor leaned back, addressing his father. "Keep working, Mr. C!" And then he lowered his voice, touching the subject he really wanted to hear about. "Now, why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

Rita barely hesitated. "Did you say you were a Doctor?"

He became very serious, sensing the depth of the problems in the house. It went beyond an authoritative husband. Rita looked tragically conflicted.

"Yes, I am."

Her voice crackled with pain. "Can you help her? Oh, please. Can you help her, Doctor?"

Mr. Connolly was listening in. "Now then, Rita, I don't think the gentleman needs to know."

"Oh, the gentleman does," the Doctor countered.

Rose sat up. "Tell us what's wrong, and we can help." Rita began to cry, and Rose went to put her arms around her. "It's all right. It's all right. Come here. It's okay."

Mr. Connolly finally seemed to realize everything was not as it should be. "Hold on a minute. Queen and Country's one thing, but this is my house. What the… What the hell am I doing?" He came around into the living room, appearing aggressively dominant. "Now you listen here, Doctor. You may have fancy qualifications, but what goes on under my roof is my business."

The Doctor had no patience for this man. It was the first time in a long time he had felt so vehemently opposed to one person. He didn't like the way he treated his wife, or how he talked to his son. It really ground on his nerves.

But he tried to stay reasonable anyway.

"Not if people are being bundled into-"

Mr. Connolly broke in, raising his voice, "I am _talking_!"

And that was enough to light the powder keg.

The Doctor stood, coming almost nose-to-nose with the other man. His patience hits its ceiling. "And I'm not _listening_! Now you, Mr. Connolly, you are staring into a deep, dark _pit_ of trouble if you don't let me help. So I'm ordering you, _sir_ , tell me what's going on!"

Before Mr. Connolly could answer, or perhaps wee himself, there was a thud up above them.

The Doctor looked up, perplexed, as it came a few more times.

Finally, Mr. Connolly dropped his dominant attitude. He sounded confused and desperate, like his wife. "She won't stop. She never stops."

Tommy spoke up. His voice trembled. "We started hearing stories, all round the place. People who've changed. Families keeping it secret 'cause they were scared. Then the police started finding out. We don't know how, no one does. They just turn up. They come to the door and take them. Any time of the day or night."

He seemed very afraid, and the Doctor always took it upon himself to try and free people from their fears. He let the words settle into him, becoming infinitely more curious and cautious of what was going on in this little neighborhood.

"Show me."

Tommy took them upstairs, to the door at the end of the hall. He opened it slowly, glancing back at them a few times as if to make sure he had backup. He spoke softly as he walked in. "Gran, it's Tommy. It's alright Gran. I've brought help."

There she was.

She turned around, an otherwise normal human being, and showed the Doctor what kind of horrible things were happening in London in 1953. Her face was gone. Her skin was smooth where her features had been. He maintained his calm, but got a shot of adrenaline.

Monsters indeed.


	14. Faceoff

**Chapter 14.**

 **Faceoff.**

The Doctor approached the faceless woman, leaning in to make sure he was seeing it correctly. Her features were gone. Where there should have been a nose, and a mouth, and two eyes, and the distinct ridges and curves that went with them, there was just blank skin. Her family viewed her with unmasked horror. Rose was speechless.

It was the Doctor who spoke, at last. "Her face is completely gone."

He deployed his screwdriver, running it over the blank skin. He got little feedback, which was strange for a human mind – they were always running, always working, even in the dimmest people. What could do something like this?

"Scarcely an electrical impulse left. Almost complete neural shutdown. It's just ticking over. It's like her brain's been wiped clean."

Tommy spoke up. "What are we gonna do, Doctor? We can't even feed her."

He would have comforted the boy, saying something to the effect that he might be able to restore the old woman, but there was a crash downstairs. Everyone whipped around. Rose jumped. "We've got company."

Rita sounded desperate. "It's them! They've come for her!"

The Doctor knew the circumstances were not in his favor. He could not protect this woman, and he might have been unable to restore her, but he could try and stop it happening to anyone else.

"Quickly, what was she doing before this happened? Where was she?"

He got a rushed, worried expression from Rita, and Tommy looked to her. Neither of them spoke.

"Tell me, quickly, _think_!"

"I can't think!" Tommy declared. "She doesn't leave the house! She was just-"

Behind the boy and his mother, the towering men from before were coming up the stairs. The Doctor set his mind in motion, trying to buy himself enough time to get at least a little bit of information. He knew they were going to take the grandmother away in their car, all covered up with that sack. He could not stop them, but he could delay them.

"Hold on a minute! There are three important, brilliant, and complicated reasons why you should listen to me. One-"

One of them struck out, hitting him so hard that the room spun, and then went black.

But when the world went black, it was different for the Doctor.

His mind was still wide awake as his body tried to recover from whatever had walloped him. He thought of faceless people and tried to place the image in his vast knowledge of the universe – but it was something he had never seen before. It only took him a second to decide this was completely new.

In the following seconds he heard a high whining sound, like a train pulling into station, and felt a strange, imposing presence cloud up his mind.

It held him there a moment longer, looking into him.

And then the world rushed back up and he started back right where he left off.

"Hell of a right hook! Have to watch out for that!"

He jumped up and ran down the stairs, descending several at a time and bracing himself on the railing to keep from tumbling head over feet to the bottom. It was happening again. As he joined the family in the doorway, he saw the grandmother bundled into another police car, which promptly sped down the street with squealing tires.

He had another chance to find out where they were going.

"Rose, come on!" He ran for the scooter, almost toppling it when he jumped into the seat.

His companion was still inside.

He struggled to get his helmet on. "Rose! We're gonna lost them again!"

The Doctor hit the gas, heading out on his own. He would come back for Rose once he found out where they were taking the faceless people. She could take care of herself in the meantime.

He pursued the car down the same path, taking several sharp turns to keep up. Just like the last time, he followed them straight into an empty alley, but now he heard a distinct click in the air. There were men standing at the end, pretending to have been there all along, but the Doctor caught the trick this time. It was not an alley, but an entryway, and they had just closed it up.

"Oh, very good." He sat back, admiring it. "Very _good_."

It was a simple matter. He parked the scooter a block away and snuck around to the alley, locating a vent on the wall where he supposed the hidden building would be. It would have been innocuous on any other day, but now he knew their little game.

He found himself in an old factory. It would have been shut down decades ago, when new technology made it obsolete. He could taste the dust that had settled on the walls. The Doctor went toward the sound of talking, hiding against the wall and peeking into a wider room. The police car was there, and a man was just closing a gate and joining another at the front of the car. They nodded to each other and took a door to another room.

The Doctor ran toward the fence, now confident he had discovered their hideout. He popped the lock and slipped inside.

There was a cage in the back, shadowed, with a dozen motionless people standing in it. The Doctor had seen people in cages in different parts of history all over this planet, for drastically different reasons every time, but it still struck a chord deep down. It was out of place in this decade, and in this context. What in the world did the police think they were doing?

He approached, cautious despite his fervor to find out what had happened to them. Could they all really suffer the same symptoms? Was someone going around the houses and sucking the faces off of the residents? Why? What purpose could that serve?

The Doctor unlocked the cage and walked among them, gathering an increased sense of foreboding for every faceless person he saw. Every one of them was without their eyes, their noses, and their mouths. Expressionless and silent, human beings became something lesser. It was these features that really made them human. It was these things, in the beginning, that had separated them from their ancestors. It made them special. Seeing them taken away was sickening.

He wondered, first of all, how they had remained alive. As he went from person to person, shining a flashlight on the flat plains where their faces had been, he thought of what Tommy had said. How were they eating? How were they drinking? Why were they standing up? What sort of monster would take the face, and the electrical signals in the brain, but leave a perfectly good body up and walking around? And, most importantly, and most concerning, he had never seen anything like this before. It would have been unforgettable.

He was wondering about them, and they seemed to be wondering about him – without minds, somehow. They shuffled toward him, all of them, their hands clenching and making this awful sound, their feet moving as if bound together, and suddenly the free space in the cage closed up.

He had a feeling he should have been more cautious.

And then a light turned on and illuminated the whole place.

The Doctor turned, blinded, and heard a voice shouting, "Stay where you are!"

He obeyed, with no choice in the matter considering how many bodies were crowding around him. He suspected they could hear him walking about, even if they could not see him, or properly process the sounds in their empty minds. But they migrated toward it because it was different, like moths to a flame. It was a break from the cold, dark silence.

Some officers came into the cage, pushing through the faceless people and grabbing the Doctor. He walked with them through the door into the other room, glancing back constantly to find the faceless people standing right where they had been, now without stimulation.

He was taken to a little office on the second floor. He sat at a desk covered in pictures of blank faces. Over his shoulder, a corkboard had questions scribbled on it, and pictures pinned to it. On the other side of the room locations were mapped with pins, showing an affected area.

A rather serious looking man came in and leaned over the desk. His collar had his name on it, and his rank was clear by the way the others moved for him.

He planted his hands, his eyes intense. "Start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know."

The Doctor changed gears. He could see that this was not their doing. But judging by their response to it, they might know something about it. "Well, for starters, I know you can't wrap your hand round your elbow and make your fingers meet."

The Detective-Inspector pointed a stern finger at him. "Don't get clever with me. You were there at Florizel Street, and now breaking into this establishment. Oh, you're connected with this. Make no mistake."

"Well, the thing is, Detective Inspector Bishop-"

Bishop broke in. "How do you know my name?"

The Doctor frowned. "It's written inside your collar." Bishop drew back, straightening his tie to hide the name. "Bless your mum. But I can't help thinking, Detective Inspector, you're not exactly doing much detective-inspecting, are you?"

"I'm doing everything in my power."

"All you're doing is grabbing those faceless people and hiding them as fast as you can." It was becoming clear now. "Don't tell me, orders from above. Coronation Day, the eyes of the world are on London Town, so any sort of problem gets swept out of sight."

Bishop responded with a rehearsed statement. The Doctor suspected it was against his own opinion. "The nation has an image to maintain."

"But doesn't it drive you mad, doing nothing? Don't you want to get out there and _investigate_?"

He did. It was clear. "Course I do. But…" He sat down, his tone becoming hopeless. "With all the crowds expected, we haven't go the manpower. Even if we did, this is beyond anything we've ever seen. I just don't know anymore."

The man had gone from demanding answers to asking for help. It was a transition the Doctor liked to see. It took humility to admit to not having all the answers.

"Twenty years on the force, I don't even know where to start. We haven't the faintest clue what's going on."

While the Doctor had come in expecting to advocate for and rescue the people who had been taken, his objective changed now. Bishop had not ordered them scooped up out of malice, because he enjoyed separating families in that way, but because he had no other options, even though he wanted very badly to solve this problem. He was a good person. The Doctor could see that.

So he resolved to help him. "Well, that could change."

Bishop was very serious. "How?"

The Doctor stood up, mimicking the position Bishop had taken when he entered the room. "Start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know."

Both men rose. The Doctor wandered the room, examining the maps and diagrams and flipping through the journals documenting the incidents.

Bishop followed him. "We started finding them about a month ago. Persons left sans visage. Heads just… blank."

"Is there any sort of pattern?"

"It's spreading out from North London, all over the city. Men, women, kids, grannies. Only real lead is there's been quite a large number in-"

"Florizel Street." The Doctor finished his sentence while looking at their little log book. He saw the greatest concentration of people coming from where he had just been. But what was it about that street? He had seen two taken from there with his own eyes.

There came a knock at the door, and an officer spoke, "We found another one, sir."

Bishop responded. "Oh, good man, Crabtree. Here we are, Doctor. Take a good look. See what you can deduce."

He was already looking, and what he saw put a knife through both of his hearts. It was another person standing there with a cover over them, but with a bright pink dress and pink high heels showing at the bottom.

" _Rose_."

It stung. The Doctor approached slowly, hoping that he would wake up from this nightmare before he reached his companion. As the blanket was removed he got a view of her top half – and she was faceless like the others. It was a terrible, terrible thing.

The Detective-Inspector followed him. "You know her?"

The Doctor responded the best that he could. "Know her? She…" He could not peel his eyes away from where her face should have been. His soul was burning.

He heard something behind him about where she had been found.

It was coming through a filter, and he had to fight to get back to the present.

"They did what?"

Bishop responded. "I'm sorry?"

His rage was building. "They left her where?"

"Just… in the street."

"In the street. They left her in the street. They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And, as a result, that makes things… simple, very, very simple. Do you know why?"

Bishop was frowning. "No."

The Doctor wheeled on him. "Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me! Come on!"

It was set. He knew what was going to happen. When he found out who had done this to Rose – Rose, one of the kindest people he had ever known who would never try to hurt anyone – he would show no mercy. It was over now. They had provoked him beyond recourse. There would be on questions of why, or how, but a very sudden ending to this madness.


	15. The Presence

**Chapter 15.**

 **The Presence.**

The Doctor and the Detective-Inspector went back to Florizel Street, where a young boy had lost his Gran, and where this madness seemed to find its start. He buzzed the doorbell.

In the seconds before the door opened, the Doctor tried to compartmentalize his pain over what had been done to his companion. It was impossible. He was enraged. He was determined. He was going to do something against his own ideology if he kept it up, but there was no stopping it. He only had to hope that a decision like that would not be presented to him – at this point he would choose badly. He _wanted_ to do something rash. He _wanted_ someone to pay.

Tommy opened the door.

"Tommy. Talk to me. I need to know exactly what happened inside your house."

Like a bad odor that simply refused to dissipate, the boy's father stormed out. "What in blazes do you think you're doing?"

"I wanna help, Dad!" Tommy objected.

The Doctor tried to intervene. "Mr. Connolly."

"Shut your face, you!" Mr. Connolly snapped. "Whoever you are. We can handle this ourselves!" And then the man closed in on his son. "Listen, you little twerp. You're hardly out of the blooming cradle, so I don't expect you to understand, but I've got a position to maintain! People round here respect me! It matters what people think!"

Tommy didn't skip a beat. "Is that why you did it, Dad?"

The Doctor felt a jolt. Of course. Why hadn't he realized that?

Mr. Connolly went from being angry to surprised. "What do you mean? Did what?"

Tommy was a very clever boy. "You ratted on Gran! How else would the police know where to look? Unless some coward told them."

Mr. Connolly advanced. "How _dare_ you? You think I fought a war just so a mouthy little scum like you could call me a coward!"

Tommy gathered his words and threw them like darts, building a character of his own that any father could be proud of. "You don't get it, do you? You fought _against_ fascism, remember? People telling you how to live. Who you could be friends with. Who you could fall in love with. Who could live and who had to die. Don't you get it? You were fighting so that little twerps like me could do what we want, say what we want. Now you've become just like them. You've been informing on everyone, haven't you? Even Gran. All to protect your precious reputation!"

The Doctor realized he was looking at two perfect exemplars for this era. Tommy was the best that had come of it – idealistic, kind, and hopeful – and his father was the worst – vain, falsely patriotic, and close-minded. They were two sides of the same coin, the two outcomes of a devastating war living in the same household, so violently different that things just had to come to a head.

"Eddie, is that true?"

Everyone looked up as Mrs. Connolly emerged from the house. Her voice was broken. She looked appalled by what she had heard. It was the type of betrayal only family members could inflict.

Mr. Connolly was insistent. "I did it for us, Rita." His true character emerged, and it was horrid. "She was filthy! A filthy disgusting _thing_!"

"She's my _mother_. All the others you informed on, all the people on our street, our friends."

"I had to." He looked around for affirmation from at least one of the gathered people. Bishop looked away. The Doctor glared at him. His son was standing sturdy. His wife looked flabbergasted. He tried to reason with them. "I did the right thing!"

"The right thing for us or for you, Eddie?" Mrs. Connolly looked at her son, shaking off the horrid things her husband had said in a true display of strength. "You go, Tommy. Go with the Doctor and do some good. Get away from this house. It's poison. We've had a ruddy monster under our roof all right, but it weren't my mother!"

She slammed the door, keeping her husband out. He put himself against it and called to her, but she was not giving in.

The Doctor held his hand out. "Tommy." The boy looked at his father, and then away, severing the hold the man had on him with one little motion. He came down the steps and joined them, and the Doctor gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder to reassure him. It must have been very scary for him, to walk away from a situation like that.

But they could waste no time with comforting words.

The three of them, the Doctor, Bishop, and the boy, walked down the sidewalk, away from the poisonous house.

"Tommy, tell me about that night, the night she changed."

"She was just watching the telly," Tommy responded.

His mind doubled over itself. "Rose said it. She guessed it straightaway. Of course she did." He looked around, coming rapidly to more questions. He paused on every aerial – the things Rose had pointed out when they arrived. "All these aerials in one little street. How come?"

Tommy had the answer. "Bloke up the road, Mr. Magpie, he's selling them cheap."

The Doctor started running. He could see it all now. He had a fuzzy picture of what was happening. His companions were standing on the sidewalk, and he shouted to them, "Come on!"

It was not a hard shop to find. Magpie was written right there on the window. The Doctor tried the front door, found it locked, and put his elbow through the window.

Bishop protested. "You can't do that!"

The Doctor ignored him, opening the door from the inside and rushing in. He banged on the golden bell on the counter. " _Shop_! If you're here, come out and talk to me, Magpie!"

Tommy spoke from the door. "Maybe he's out."

"Looks like it." The Doctor started shuffling through the desk, looking for things that were terribly out of place. It was always something out of place. He found a little rectangular device that was decidedly not supposed to be here. "Oh, hello. This isn't right. This is very much not right."

He licked it, and got strange looks from the others.

"Tastes like iron. Bakelite. Knocked together with human hands, yes, but the design itself…" He retrieved his screwdriver, confirming what he tasted in the little contraption. It was what he expected. "Oh, beautiful work. That is so simple."

Bishop was stuck on the obvious. "That's incredible. It's like a television, but portable. A portable television!"

The Doctor drew his screwdriver up, trying to uncover what the little device was concealing. "It's not the only power source in this room."

He could feel it. Something was desperate to transmit. He turned his screwdriver out, finding receptors in the televisions that lined the walls. Images began appearing, fuzzy at first, and then as clear as day. Human faces, suspended in black, asking for help in silence.

Tommy went up to them first, murmuring, "Gran?"

It was all of the people who had been taken, displayed in screens. What a terrible thing to see. What a terrible thing to do.

And as he walked the room the Doctor saw the most painful face of them all.

It was Rose.

The Doctor crouched by the image of her, reading the name on her lips. It was his. She was calling out to him, over and over again, afraid and alone. It reignited his fury, to see her trapped like that. But it also gave him hope. Rose was not gone. She was right there. She was trapped, but she was preserved. He could still save her.

He knew she had no hope of hearing him, but he spoke to her anyway.

"I'm on my way."

He had a fissure in his chest, and anger clouding his mind, but something else managed to catch his attention. On the other side of the room, one of the screens was decidedly darker than the others, and the face within it was moving violently. The Doctor stood, giving another longing look at his companion before crossing to the strange face.

It shook and jerked around unnaturally on the screen. He wasn't even sure it was a face by the time he got up to it. The impression he got from it was frustration. It was angry.

He felt a presence settling around him once more, like he had when he was unconscious in the Connolly home. That was twice now. It was becoming eerie. And the face on the monitor did not look scared and afraid like the others, but absolutely enraged. It was furious. It was trying to be free. It was filling the room with an imposing darkness that gave the Doctor pause.

He heard the whining sound again, like the train pulling up to the station, and the screen suddenly went blank.

Magpie emerged from the back. "What do you think you're doing?"

He was an older man, silver-haired and wearing a black suit, certainly not alien.

But the Doctor found his anger anyway. "I want my friend restored and I think that's beyond a little backstreet electrician, so tell me, who's really in charge here?"

A voice came from behind him.

"Yoo-hoo. I think that must be me."

The Doctor turned, finding a central screen displaying the face of a woman. She was looking at them, right through the glass, smiling sinisterly.

"Oh, this one's smart as paint."

Bishop addressed Magpie. "Is she talking to us?"

Magpie looked petrified. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, I'm afraid you've brought this on yourselves. May I introduce you to my new… friend."

The woman on the screen smiled. "Jolly nice to meet you."

Bishop looked shell-shocked. "Oh, my God, it's her. That woman off the telly!"

The Doctor went to stand before the television, staring at the woman inside and deciding she had nothing to do with this. "No. It's just using her image."

"What?" Tommy was very brave. "What are you?"

The woman sounded sinister. "I'm the Wire. And I will gobble you up, pretty boy. Every last morsel! And when I have feasted, I shall regain the corporeal body, which my fellow kind denied me." As she spoke she went from black-and-white to color.

Bishop gawked. "Good Lord. Color television."

The Doctor fixated on the entity, trying to piece together what she had said to come up with a species. "So your own people tried to stop you?"

The Wire seemed equally interested in him. "They executed me, but I escaped in this form and fled across the stars."

"And now you're trapped in the television."

"Not for much longer."

"Doctor." Tommy stepped a little closer to him. "Is this what got my gran?"

"Yes, Tommy. It feeds off the electrical activity of the brain, but it gorges itself like a great, over-fed pig. Taking people's faces, their essence, as it stuffs itself."

Incredibly, Bishop was following it all. "And you let her do it, Magpie!"

Magpie floundered. "I had to. She allowed me my face. She's promised to release me at the time of manifestation."

Tommy spoke up. "What does that mean?"

"The appointed time." The Wire chalked up a bit of enthusiasm. "My crowning glory."

Bishop took this one. "Doctor, the Coronation!"

Oh, what a clever creature this was.

"For the first time in history, millions gathered round a television set." He could see the outline of the plan, but it was all wrong. It was impossible. "But you're not strong enough yet, are you? You can't do it all from here." He held up the box. "That's why you need this. You need something more powerful. This will turn a big transmitter into a big receiver."

She was shaking her head. "What a clever thing you are. But why fret about it? Why not just relax? Kick off your shoes and enjoy the Coronation. Believe me, you'll be _glued_ to the screen."

Suddenly she took hold of them all. The Doctor felt it like a jolt of electricity to his head, nowhere near as effective on him as it would be on a human. But he had so much going on in there that he would be an endless snack for this creature. He could not let that happen.

His body was rigid, but he managed to slip his hand onto his screwdriver and draw it out. He pointed it at the screen as best he could, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and then it stopped.

He hit the ground.

As the darkness hit him, so did the presence, weaker this time, like it was fading. Was it from one of the faces lost in the televisions? Or was it the dark one, the troubled one, that had disappeared as he looked at it? Why was it fading _now_? Was it the alien? Or was it something else entirely?

Precious seconds passed before he could grasp the world again.

He sat up. Bishop was down, his face completely gone, his hands clenching and unclenching with residual electrical energy. But Tommy was intact.

The Doctor shook his foot. "Tommy, wake up! Tommy, come on!"

The boy stirred, startled. "What happened?"

"Where's Magpie?"

The shop was empty aside from them, and the box was gone. The Doctor stormed out, looking up and down the street for any sign of the rogue electrician.

Tommy followed him. "We don't even know where to start looking. It's too late."

"Never too late, as a wise person once said. Kylie, I think. The Wire's got big plans. It needs… Oh, yes, yes. She's gonna harvest half the population. Millions and millions of people. And where are we?"

"Muswell Hill," Tommy responded.

"Muswell Hill. _Muswell Hill_! Which means…" The Doctor stirred, motioning to the building over the rise in the distance. His mind was working very slow today. "Alexandra Palace! Biggest TV transmitter in North London. Oh! That's why it chose this place, Tommy!"

"What are you gonna do?"

The Doctor went back to the door, pushing his way inside. "I'm going shopping!"


	16. Lingering

**Chapter 16.**

 **Lingering.**

When they arrived in the broadcast room, the Doctor dumped his contraption on the control center. He hooked it in, connecting the copper wire he had pillaged from the electronics shop and giving rushed instructions to Tommy. "Don't let anyone stop you, Tommy. Everything depends on it, you understand?"

He had faith in the boy. He had shown a strong will so far.

The Doctor unwound his wire as he left the room, doubling back around the building and past the guard who thought he was the king of Belgium. He climbed the fire escape.

"You'll get yourself killed up there!" The guard called. "Your majesty!"

When the stairs stopped, the Doctor climbed a ladder, and when that ended he found himself scaling the tower itself. Magpie was at the top, and the Wire was yelling something at him. He was plugging his little box into the tower, allowing her unfettered access to the population.

Bursts of red lightning emerged from the top of the tower. No doubt, there were people sitting all over the city being fed upon by the Wire.

Magpie cried out, his eyes clenched shut. "It's too late! It's too late for all of us!"

The Wire spoke to the Doctor. "I shall consume you, Doctor!"

The electricity struck him, almost knocking him out of the tower. But it made his hands lock onto the bars, keeping him dangling even when his legs were knocked away. Seconds later it relented, and he steadied himself, his whole body tingling with electricity.

"I won't let you do this, Magpie!" he shouted.

"Help me, Doctor! It burns!" Magpie was clinging to the top with both arms. He sounded lost, like hope had abandoned him long ago. "It took my face, my soul!"

It persisted, speaking over him. "You cannot stop the Wire. Soon, I shall become manifest."

The electricity struck him again, stronger this time. It felt like being fried from the inside out. But his mind was strong. It had felt her power before it and it rebounded the attack. Despite the newfound power of the Wire, it couldn't overwhelm him.

Magpie went on wailing. "No more. No more of this. You promised me peace."

The Wire responded. "Then peace you shall have."

Magpie was flung backward from the tower, and as he was suspended in the air, the lightning took him. He was disintegrated, his last screams echoing.

The Doctor reached out for the transmitter, but the lightning struck him, trying to deflect the touch. It stung, but he was not deterred. "Been burning the candle at both ends? You've over-extended yourself, missus. You shouldn't have had a crack at poor old Magpie there."

He grabbed the transmitter, finally getting a solid hand on it.

Electricity rushed through the tower, striking at his shoes but failing to move up his body.

"Rubber soles, swear by them."

He retrieved the end of his long copper wire and plugged it into the transmitter, waiting in vain for the little machine to be overwhelmed.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, dear." The Wire smiled at him. "Has our little plan gone horribly wrong, Doctor?"

It should have worked. She should have been out of the broadcast, and nailed down on a physical tape by now. What had gone wrong?

The Wire was laughing, enjoying the feeling of sapping the minds away from innocent people all over London, and perhaps all over the world by this point. And then, suddenly, the red lightning sparking overhead retreated, and the woman in the screen began crying out in pain.

It was working. The Doctor smiled.

"It's closed down, I'm afraid, and no epilogue."

She screamed, and the transmitter turned off. Everything went still and silent.

He had a moment to appreciate what he had done. It was necessary. She was a criminal on her own planet. She had said it herself. And she would never hurt anyone again.

The Doctor descended the tower, carrying the transmitter and bundling up his wire. He went to join Tommy in the control room, finding him leaning very seriously over the machine the Doctor had brought along. He had done something to save the day, certainly. He was a good kid.

"What have I missed?"

Tommy wheeled, smiling. "Doctor! What happened?"

"Sorted. Electrical creature. TV technology. Clever alien life form." He crossed to the boy, pleased with himself. "That's me, by the way. I turned the receiver back into a transmitter and I trapped the Wire in here." He popped the top on his creation, revealing the tape that had the Wire on it. He pulled it out to show it to Tommy. "I just invented the home video 30 years early." Tommy looked uncertain, so the Doctor clarified. "Betamax."

The televisions in the studio were playing the Coronation, a historical event he had attended in person at some point in his very long life.

"Oh look." He pointed it out to the boy. "God save the Queen, eh?"

"Doctor?" Tommy moved past the video tape, and the red lightning, and the creature trapped in their presence. "Do you think…? Can we go and see…?"

"I think we should." He motioned to the door. "After you."

They walked back to the neighborhood, to the alley with the disappearing cars.

The Doctor was elated to see a crowd of people – the people who had been in the cage without their faces – coming out of the building and stroking their cheeks and foreheads. They had been restored. It was the perfect ending.

Tommy spotted his gran first thing, and she saw him, too. She turned and held out her arms, and he ran for her, embracing her.

The Doctor walked on, searching for his very favorite face among the gathered.

And there she was, smiling at him. The cloud above his head dissipated and he got a kick in his step. As he reached her he threw his arms around her and spun her, evoking a giggle that made the whole day better.

"You missed the Coronation," he said as he drew away, unable to help his beaming. "But I got it on tape for you."

Rose grinned. "I think I've had enough telly today."

"Me too. For a while." He put his arm around her shoulder, kicking off a stroll. "You know, I hear talk of a block party. They got a big table set up on Florizel Street. Loads of food."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "I _am_ starving."

They walked back to Florizel Street and lounged around Tommy's front door, watching the organizers get everything prepared. Rose described her experience as a long, bad dream, assuring him that she was unharmed, and that she really had it better than him this time. She elevated his mood, keeping him smiling while she recounted her mother's words on the Coronation. Tommy sat with them, bubbling out of his shell for perhaps the first time. He talked about what he had seen, and promised not to tell anyone about the Doctor. He also promised to be a better person than his dad. He was so happy to have his gran back that he never stopped smiling.

It was a marvelous event when it was all set up. The Doctor strolled down the table with Rose, enjoying the site of over a hundred friendly neighbors celebrating together. He needed a little human enthusiasm to restore his faith in them.

Rose bit her lip. "We could go down to the Mall, join in with the crowds."

The Doctor snagged a tart off the table as he passed. "No, that's just pomp and circumstance. This is history, right here."

She smiled. "The domestic approach?"

"Exactly."

"Will it… that thing… is it trapped for good on the video?"

"Hope so. Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll use my unrivalled knowledge of trans-temporal extirpation methods to neutralize the residual electronic pattern."

"You what?"

"I'm going to tape over it."

Rose laughed. "Just leave it to me. I'm always doing that."

They had reached Tommy, who stood at the table socializing with his neighbors. He looked a little too thoughtful, a little grim, perhaps.

"Tell you what, Tommy. You can have the scooter. Little present. Best, um, keep it in the garage for a few years, though, eh?"

Tommy was looking past him. He nodded. "Good riddance."

The Doctor turned, finding the boy's father walking down the sidewalk with a suitcase in hand. It appeared Mrs. Connolly had had enough of his nonsense. The Doctor had no sympathy for the man, but he was quite fond of his son, and something struck him.

"Is that it, then, Tommy? New monarch, new age, new world. No room for a man like Eddie Connolly."

Tommy nodded. "That's right. He deserves it."

The Doctor nodded. He did deserve it.

Rose wouldn't let it go. "Tommy, go after him."

"What for?"

"He's your dad."

"He's an idiot," Tommy dismissed.

"Like I said, he's your dad. But you're clever, clever enough to save the world, so don't stop there." She smiled. "Go on."

Tommy ran off, flanking his father and offering to carry his suitcase.

He disagreed, foreseeing a lifetime of disappointment for Tommy from that terrible man, but the moment was a little perfect, and that was all he needed. The Doctor stood, offering Rose a drink to toast with. She smiled again, satisfied with her intervention.

His mind wandered on.

"When you were… dreaming… did you feel anything strange?"

"Like what?" Rose set her drink down, smiling at someone who passed them by. "It was really just… empty. And quiet. Like I could see, but there was nothing _to_ see."

"A presence."

She frowned. "Nothing. Why? Did you feel something?"

He did. It popped up in his head, and for a brief moment he saw it in the electronics shop. He hoped it had something to do with the Wire – perhaps a manifestation of the creature's frustration – but he felt that it was something more important than that, more sinister. He could still feel it in the back of his mind, so angry, so enraged, so imposing, so powerful.

But there was no need to burden Rose with his fears. He set them aside, smiled, and downed the rest of his drink. "No. Just making sure. Shall we go and see Elvis, then?"


	17. The Attack

**Chapter 17.**

 **The Attack.**

He hit the note like he was born to hit it, committing his deep, rasping voice to the first lyric in his most infamous song. When the words hit the audience, they screamed, rising from their seats with their arms up as if hoping to catch the brilliance of such a song in their outstretched hands.

Rose followed the cues of the crowd, screaming, smiling, and looking back at him with sparkles in her eyes. She was quite a sight. He grinned, joining in her excitement.

When the performer paused his guitar and thrust his hips, completely defying the year with his sultry dance moves, the girls let out a universal squeal, and, no doubt, the audiences at home gave a collective cringe. It was unheard of. The Doctor enjoyed moments like this, when the ideals that people stood on were challenged and they were forced to react to a monumental change. It bred a lot of resentment, of course, and movements to suppress this new and dangerous form of expression, but in the end it brought about a wave of new ideas, allowing humans to expand and grow in ways never dreamed of before. It was everything he loved about humanity in one performance, and it worked like a charm to push their recent alien encounter out of his mind.

He had faith in this screaming crowd, in the girl he had come with, and in this entire race, without letting people like Eddie Connolly crowd up his perspective.

Rose stepped back and grabbed his arm, squeezing it. "This is amazing!"

"I thought you would enjoy it!"

Within a minute, the performance ended, and rightly so. If it kept on the audience might explode. Rose leaned heavily into him, smiling so hard her cheeks crinkled, and the women went on screaming for the artist who had shimmied his way across the stage. Elvis Presley, a true icon, slung his guitar to the side and gave them one last dance.

"We should skedaddle. I think the crowd might implode!" The Doctor pulled her toward the exit, and once they were outside, he gave her a history lesson. "Interestingly enough, this first performance was shot full-body, but by the third the censors refused to show him anyway but from the waist up. As you can imagine, there was loads of backlash about that."

"But why?" Rose linked her arms into one of his, walking briskly beside him. "It seemed fine to me. Oh, the way he sings love songs just rattles the heart, right?"

"Yeah it does," The Doctor smiled at her, " _But_ , that performance cost the show some $50,000, and the reaction from a good portion of the public made that investment go right down the toilet. Oh, and what was it Laughton said after the show? We missed it. 'Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast!'"

Rose was practically skipping. "But can you believe he just came and sat with us like that? I thought I was gonna get to screaming like those girls in there!"

"He gave you the time of day, eh?"

Rose flattened out her jacket, gazing at a few black lines on the collar again. "Do you think Mum will believe that he signed this? I think she might faint!"

The Doctor flipped his own collar. "I think mine looks better."

Rose giggled, bouncing, and squeezed his arm again. "We met _Elvis_!"

"And right before he really struck gold. After that, his price quadrupled, 'Love Me Tender' blew up the charts like nothing ever had, and that man became a staple in American society – all over the world people knew his name."

"He was sort of normal, wasn't he? I mean, in the primal, manly, puffed up lip kind of way."

"Look at you swooning."

"No worse than you and that girl of yours."

"Oi!"

Rose laughed, driving him sideways. "Come on. I want to get Mum something – like maybe a leather jacket."

"We can get some bloke to sign it, pretend it's Elvis."

Rose nodded. "I like the way you think. Where are we, then?"

"Hollywood, California. Elvis is here filming his very first movie! He broadcasted from here to the studio in New York. Ed Sullivan had a car accident and he's still recuperating – that's why Charles Laughton was there on the telly. _He_ was back in New York."

"Hollywood, huh? Should be some proper shopping around here."

"Oh, the things I could show you."

They wandered the streets for a while, coming down from the excitement of seeing such a historical show to peruse the streets of Hollywood in 1956. Big buildings, flashing lights, and streets full of cars filled their day, with Rose commenting on the culture, and asking him questions about the history until they made it to their destination. He took her to the main road just as dusk settled, when all the neon signs were lit, and the sidewalks were impossibly crowded, and cars waited in long lines to pass through intersections. It smelled like cheap perfume and the electronics gave the streets a warm glow.

Rose wove in and out of the shops, sometimes dragging him along, sometimes wandering around on her own. She nailed the lingo of the times. The Doctor admired the locale, enjoying the colors, appreciating the music flowing out of every shop – coming off genuine record players with the depth to sooth the soul.

It was a proper '50s experience, far away from the Coronation and the Wire.

When Rose went into Music City, the Doctor waited outside against the window, smiling at the crowd as they passed. But something changed suddenly.

He felt a sharp pain in his temple, like a hot iron going through his skull.

The Doctor hit one knee, his body weakening against this sudden attack. It struck him harder than anything in recent memory, absolutely knocking his breath away. He struggled while his lungs tightened up, while pain shot like electricity through his limbs, and then came the blackness.

It rose up and swallowed him, like it had in North London in 1953.

He felt the presence looming again.

It was in his head. It was rummaging around, stabbing him, producing sharp flashes of pain. He got an impression from it – it was terribly, terribly angry, and it was looking for something. It was searching desperately for something. It was searching hungrily for something.

His eyes opened, and the presence faded.

Rose was there, and a crowd had gathered. She held onto his face, her eyes wide. "Doctor? What happened? Hey, look at me. You alright?"

He shook himself, sitting up, waving the people away. "I'm fine. Got a little lightheaded, is all."

Rose remained where she was. "What was _that_?"

"I need to get to the TARDIS. Something's wrong."

He had a hard time walking after a blow like that. Rose helped him along the sidewalk on a long journey back to where they had left the TARDIS. On a dark, quiet street, it sat like a safety beacon.

The Doctor practically fell inside. Rose shut the doors behind him. He scrambled down the hall to the recovery room, hitting his knees when he finally made it. His energy was drained. It was like the presence had used his mind to process something – used him like a computer to do research, and then spat him out. But what could do something like that? What was it looking for? What had it taken from him? He knew things that could damage the fabric of the universe. He knew things that no one else should ever know.

Rose tried to follow, but he closed the glass door on her. She waited outside of it, calling his name, but not trying to come in.

"Do a full body scan." He smacked his hand on the floor. "Do the scan!"

The room activated, and the ceiling hummed. The white tiles lining the walls, forming a perfect cylinder around him, shifted and released blue beams of light that poured over his body. He remained still, on his knees, trying to ease his panic.

The computer spoke.

"Scan complete. No abnormalities detected."

"Scan again! Something is wrong!"

Again, the blue lights ran over him, and the computer repeated its response.

He sat up, grasping at his chest as his lungs finally loosened. He was trying to compile a list of all of the things that could possibly attack him like that – the things that could possibly invade the mind of a Time Lord that way – but he was drawing a blank. He was purposefully complex. His species was designed to hold secrets against the probing of anything that would try to take advantage. But something had walked right into him. It had flipped through his mind like a picture book. It could know a slew of horrible, terrible things.

Rose came in, sinking to her knees beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder. "Doctor? Tell me what's happening. Tell me what's wrong."

"Something attacked me. Something got into my head." He ran his hand over his hair, pressing his fingers to his skull. "I don't know how. It's impossible."

"You asked me about a presence at the block party. What aren't you telling me?"

He shook his head, getting to his feet. His way back to the console room was easier, but he still felt drained. "Something is following me. I felt it when I got hit by that officer at the Connolly house, and then again when the Wire knocked me out. There was this face on the telly… an angry, inhuman face." He walked around the console, trying to figure out what he wanted. Where could he go? "And now, in a completely different year, in another place… it must be following me. It latched onto me somehow and it got in my head."

"How is that possible?"

"I don't know!" He realized he was shouting at her. He tried to force himself to calm down. "Sorry. I don't know. I hate it when I don't know. This could be bad. This could be very, very bad. The things I know, Rose…"

Rose came over and wrapped her arms around him, leaning into his shoulder. "Hey, whatever it is, we can handle it."

He doubted that. He doubted everything.

"I'll take you home." He moved away from her, setting the dials correctly this time and starting the engine up.

Rose looked disappointed, but she didn't argue.

When the TARDIS landed, the Doctor opened the doors for her. "Get some time in with your Mum. I need to think."

She dragged her feet all the way out, stopping to hug him again before she left. "Will you be alright?"

"It's gone now. I'll be fine. It's just a matter of figuring out what it took with it. And I need to do that alone." He watched her as she departed down the street, looking back at him a few times. He hated leaving her here, but whatever had attacked him was powerful enough to strike her down. He wanted her very far away from this.

And he wanted answers.


	18. One Million Ghosts

**Chapter 18.**

 **One Million Ghosts.**

It had been hours and hours and hours, and there were no answers in sight. He had poured over every piece of his own mind, sitting in meditation like a madman in the middle of the library, trying every feasible thing to test his own memory. What did the presence want from him? Had it found what it wanted, or was it going to return to look again? It was his responsibility to answer those questions, because it was his mind that had been compromised, and his secrets that could have been exposed. With information like that, information that came from a thousand years of exploring the stars, an angry being like the presence he had felt could destroy the universe.

It was frustrating to be the only clue in this puzzle. He was at the end of his wits. He had nothing else to try, beyond what he had done already. He could only wait for it to strike again, and do his best to figure out what it was.

But that would never do.

He ended his solitude by landing on a now-familiar street in a posh neighborhood on Earth. It was late evening. He sat on his bench and observed the quaint house across the street, allowing his mind to wander for the first time since his quest for answers had begun.

Her family was away. Usually there was a Suburban parked in the driveway, but it was gone, and all the lights were off inside. The mailbox had a few extra letters stuffed into it. He found himself lingering again on a mystery he still believed he could solve. If he spent more time with this out of place girl, he might glean her species, or at least decide whether or not she was dangerous. He wanted at least one complete picture in all of these puzzles.

Grace came out after an hour or so had passed. She crossed the street and sat beside him, sighing. She looked tired. Her beautiful eyes were sagging. Her short hair was all crinkled up like she had just stirred from a nap.

"Quiet in there," she said, yawning. "I woke up this morning and everybody was gone. Found a note on the counter – gone to the mountains for the week. Skiing."

The Doctor nodded. "No invite?"

"No. But can you believe that? Skiing, in all this mess! I've been watching the news and I've heard about these wars going on. Everywhere but here, it seems. And they're going skiing!"

"Well, this is normal for them. The wars are just a part of life."

Grace sighed again, sinking further into her seat. "I know why I'm sulking, but why are you?"

"I'm not sulking."

"You are definitely sulking. Look at that face! You look just like you did before I took your ship and fixed everything. You look like you lost a battle. What did you lose, then?"

He took a deep breath. "I didn't lose a battle… but something happened that I can't explain."

"Oh." She nudged his shoulder. "Come on, then." She hopped up and got halfway across the street before she realized he wasn't following. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?"

"Living room. We got surround sound in this house. Lots of movies, plenty of popcorn."

"You humans and your popcorn," the Doctor muttered. He rose, a little unwilling, and followed her into the house. What harm could it do? He was having a very bad day and a little movie might cheer him up. Besides, he suspected Grace would come back and carry him inside if he denied her. She was a force of nature.

He found himself lounging across the couch with her, shoveling popcorn into his mouth and watching a strange movie about lost travelers in a land made entirely of marshmallows. Grace talked on and on about her studies, gushing about the species she had discovered and how unique it was, and then complaining about how much she hated biology. Her conflicting interests, he explained, were due to her recalling her past life. Soon they would settle.

And, like the night he had spent in her recliner, he found himself talking without a filter. He told her about the Wire, and about Tommy and his father, and explained the workings of an electrical entity. Eventually she got a pillow and put her head in his lap, watching the movie intently, but hearing and sometimes questioning what he said. Despite the sheer amount of information he sometimes shared with her, he had a feeling she was absorbing everything. She could lay there and watch the movie, but hear every word he said. She was good at multitasking.

He hesitated when he got to why he had come here.

"Is that the end, then?" Grace twisted, looking up at him. "You cut off short there. You were in some city and you saw the guy sing, and then what?"

The Doctor, for some reason he couldn't comprehend, reached over to brush a little fleck of glitter off of her cheek. He felt inexplicably at home here, in a living room, in 2558, and his reservations and worries about the presence left him. It was _her_ presence that soothed him. He was beginning to think it was a working of her species, that she was manipulating the whole feeling of the room and invoking complicity. It was a scary thought, but a short-lived one.

When she smiled, it was clear why he was at ease.

"Come on." She caught his hand, toying with his thumb this time, finally freeing him from her eyes. "I know, as a potential friend, I should say you don't have to tell me, but I really want to know. You're the smartest man I've ever met. What don't _you_ understand?"

"It was… a presence."

He went over the story again, adding the details he had omitted about the presence, and the face in the television. Grace listened, and examined his hand, and looked at him with a serious frown when he told her of the attack in Hollywood.

"It was looking for something? Like what? How can it _look_ for something?"

"I don't know. I don't know. And it's driving me mad."

"Well, the universe is still here, so apparently it didn't do too much damage." Grace stared at him, into him, and became serious. "Maybe you're being haunted, Doctor."

 _Haunted_.

He had lost enough to have one million ghosts trailing after him everywhere he went, but he had never imagined being haunted before. He dismissed the idea, but let it comfort him anyway, reasoning that this could also be something simple. It had really, legitimately scared him. Perhaps he had overreacted.

He marveled at Grace, now wondering if his whole reason for coming here, subconsciously, was to seek comfort in her. She was good at it without even trying.

And an idea came to him.

"You said you were sulking, too. Why was that?"

Grace motioned to the dark, empty living room. "The quiet. I hate it."

"Right. So why don't you and I go on a little trip?"

Grace brightened at the offer. She sat up, staring at him, practically bursting out of her skin. "Do you mean that? Like where you went with Rose? Like the past?"

"Wherever you want."

She held up a finger, asking him to wait, and then ran for the back of the house. He heard her storming down the stairs. While he was there alone, he took another look at the pictures crowding the living room, again wondering why she was absent from most of them. It was another mystery, for another day.

Grace returned and presented him with a folder.

"What's this, then?" He flipped through a stack of research papers. "Your studies?"

"My dissertation! Did I mention I graduated early in this world? Apparently I've been working on this for the last year, and I'm right at the end, without enough content to finish it. It's about Cyclic Gene 457. I've been tracing its origination."

"What now?"

"Cyclic Gene 457 – the breakthrough in gene therapy that allows people to have long, healthier lives. Its use has accelerated human lives by up to eight years – so far, anyway! And I figure there's tons of research about it and how to use it, but none about where it came from."

The Doctor had never heard of the gene, but the technology was normal for this era. It was nothing more than a way for cells to restart their division cycles without becoming cancerous.

"And where did it come from?"

"I've traced the genealogy of its carriers to one family, where it must have mutated. We could go back and find out for ourselves how it came about, right?"

The Doctor enjoyed her enthusiasm. It was contagious. "We could. When was this?"

"Um, 1851. They lived in North Carolina, in a state called United."

"That would be the United States. And we're going to have to get a little more specific than that."

He usually avoided the pre-Civil War Era in that region, but it was undeniably a melting pot for some of the biggest discussions about slavery and the rights of individuals in early human history. It was where the revolutionary nation that that had so boldly declared that all men were created equal had to live up to its claims, to put its mettle where its mouth was.

Grace frowned. "That was all I could find on the location."

"We can look into it a little more. What was the name?"

"Smith."

"Lovely. Most common surname. Should be easy, then." He motioned to the door. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"Big old library. You'll love it."

"Sounds like I might hate it."

"Well, it's terribly quiet, so you might."


	19. Fresh Air

**Chapter 19.**

 **Fresh Air.**

The Doctor stood in front of the doors, blocking his eager companion from running out all willy nilly like she had when they got to the library. Grace had almost fallen over the railing and down fourteen stories. If not for the slime creature that dodged into her way, she would be significantly flatter. He blocked her way now because she was not even cautioned by that near-miss. She was fearless, as she had been in the corrupted reality, and it was going to get her killed.

Grace bounced from side to side, trying to figure a way around him. He would not put it past her to try and tunnel through him. "Are we there? Is this the past? I want to see!"

"You weren't nearly this excited at the library."

"Well, it was a _library_. Seen those. But I've never seen Earth a thousand years ago!"

"It was the biggest library in the universe, and you barely blinked at it!"

"I almost died. I was recuperating."

He waved her away. "You have to change. I only said it a dozen times. You can't go to pre-Civil-War North Carolina wearing _that_!"

Grace stopped bouncing and looked down at her outfit. "What's wrong with it?"

"For one, your shorts are too short, and they're made of a fabric that doesn't exist yet. Two, you're wearing a tank top, and these people barely accept seeing shoulders. Three, you're wearing make-up. Four-"

"I'm not wearing make-up." She framed her face dramatically. "I'm just naturally this _gorgeous_."

"Right. Well you have to change your clothes."

Grace sulked, doing a hard twist and retreating into the hall. Despite having limited downtime between their destinations, she had managed to wander into just about every area he asked her not to go to. She had a nose for trouble. It was like inviting a toddler onto his ship – only it was a clever toddler who seemed to be pushing his buttons on purpose.

When she returned, she was wearing the long, dense period dress he had provided. It was suitably dull and covered up enough to make her presentable without giving her heat stroke.

He came over and patted her hair down. It usually rested in a serious of spikes and curls – she had admitted to lopping it off when she got tired of caring for it. "None of that. Women had long hair in this time. I don't suppose you would wear a wig."

"Only if you do." She pushed by him, going to the doors and hesitating with her hands on them. She looked back at him. "Come on! You're my tour guide!"

The Doctor followed her out into a barren field. It was bordered by a forest, on the edge of a town called New Fountain. It was small, quaint, and doomed to be completely destroyed when the Civil War started up. It had a healthy population of a little over sixty people, a public schoolhouse, a courtroom, a town hall, and a few beautiful modern amenities like wide, paved roads, leveled sidewalks, and intricate brick mosaics in the walls that surrounded the houses – and, most importantly, there was a family of Smiths living above the tailor in the center of town.

But as he turned to marvel at the first house alongside the field, which was an architectural masterpiece of its own, Grace pulled him in the opposite direction. She dragged him around in circles, gawking at everything, giving audible gasps and grinning at a world she would consider very ancient. Her focus was on the forest.

"Birds!" She jumped when something flew out of the trees, giggling, and nearly wrenched his arm out of socket to get his attention. "Did you see that? Look at how green the leaves are! And what is that _smell_? Doctor?"

"Uh, fresh air."

"Fresh air!"

It was entertaining. What he found annoying in the TARDIS became endearing outdoors. She shared his equal-opportunity fascination for the mundane. She found beauty in the littlest things. He was suddenly glad he had not landed in the middle of town, so the people could not behold the spectacle of this strange girl.

She hit her knees in the dirt, digging up a few worms and holding them out in her palm. "Look at that! Segmented and everything! Pink as can be!"

Grace came from a century with very little value for nature. Sure, the corrupted version of her world had featured a snowy forest, but the air was infested with pollution and the tree limbs were bare and dead. In her new home, every house in the neighborhood had grass, but it was artificial. It grew in a cycle, lengthening and shortening, darkening and lightening, on timers that followed the seasons. What little green resources they had remaining were shut away in museums, in domes that people could visit, but it was nothing like this. It was nothing like a real, proper forest.

He was glad he could show her this. Whatever had been bothering her before, whether it be the silence or something she still refused to tell him, was off her mind now.

"You know, I read about these. I read about all of this. But I never got to see it." She dumped the worm back into the soil, burying it carefully, conscientiously, and then patting the top. "All my professors, the people who teach us about the world… just think of all the things they never saw!"

She got up, dusting her dress off, and then she tackled the Doctor. She wrapped him in a tight hug.

"Thank you!"

Should he really be thanks for bringing her to a field full of dirt? He smiled, echoing her enthusiasm. "There's loads more to see. We only just got here."

"Yeah. You're right." She released him, dusting his suit. "Sorry. Where were we?" Finally, she looked at the nearby town, and smiled again. "Am I presentable?"

He held out his hand. "Always. Let me show you around."

"Have you been here before?"

"Oh, decades ago. New Fountain was actually built right after the Revolution."

"What revolution?"

"Don't they teach you any of your own history? You don't have an English accent, so I assumed Johnston was a derivative of this area."

"It is. Was. Will be. I think." She skipped along beside him, taking her first step on the sidewalk and laughing. "Feels like home. Looks a lot like home, but older."

"Architecture is immortal."

"What revolution was it, anyway?"

Was it possible to suppress that much history into a few statements? It seemed important for her to know, since they might be spending a little time here.

"Well… you know what a colony is, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, England – that's across the ocean, there – had a lot of colonies all over. It got a few on this continent, and they rebelled. They wanted to be their own country. So the thirteen of them all joined up and staged a revolution. They declared their rights to sovereignty in a very famous document – it was a time when human rights were just emerging. Before that, there wasn't really a concept of 'universal rights.' In your time, that concept starts getting skewered because of the presence of aliens, like me. But during the Revolution, it came right to the forefront. Whole world was talking about it."

"That happened here?"

"Right here, actually. Not far away. Not long ago. Okay, a century or so. But not _that_ long ago. Point is, this place was built on the back of that war. It was a model for how they wanted their new nation to look, how they wanted it to _feel_. New Fountain was the _World of Tomorrow_ , before Disney made his own version."

"Huh?"

"Oh, right, sorry. Am I rambling?"

"I like listening to you talk." She squeezed his hand, smiled at him disarmingly, and then pointed across the street. "Is that an ice-cream shop?"

"Looks like it. Fancy a bowl? It might taste different than what you're used to."

Grace was already halfway across the street. "Come _on_!"

He jogged after her. "Let me handle it. I got a handy little trick for getting samples." He took out his psychic paper, flashing it to her. "Shows people what I want them to see."

"It says you work for the president. What president?"

"Um, it's 1851, so I suppose that would be Millard Fillmore. Ooh. I love Fillmore. Not for anything he did, but for his odd place in history. 13th president of the United States, and the last president to not be associated with the two major parties. He was a Whig!"

"What a strange object to elect."

He frowned at her. "No. He wasn't really a… never mind. Carry on."

Grace went into the shop first, taking a deep breath and smiling like she had just won the lottery. It was easy to see why. The Doctor got a whiff of fresh pastries, lemon ice-cream, and caramel penny candies. His eyes lit up and his stomach growled.

"Penny candies! I love those!" He stood at the counter, admiring the pile of them behind the glass. "You just got 'em in, eh?"

The shopkeeper gave him a strange look, probably for his accent, but he seemed friendly. He came over and leaned across the counter, folding his arms under himself, giving his magnificent beard a stroke. "Yes, sir. We just got them off the wagon from Buffalo."

The Doctor looked at Grace. "Penny candies were the first widely distributed candy. They originated in London, I think, at the Great Exhibition, just this year!"

She approached, looking wearily at the shopkeeper. "How much are they?"

"We sell 'em by weight." He gave Grace a strange look as well. She was wearing the proper attire, but not the right way, and her accent was far from southern. Her hair just piled on the oddities, because out of all the women he had probably ever met, she had the least.

The Doctor held out his psychic paper. "Am I correct in assuming that you, sir, are the proprietor of this fine establishment?"

The man's eyes bugged. "Uh, yessir. What can I do for you?"

"As you can see, I come on official business. President Fillmore is planning a trip down south and he would like to stop in New Fountain, considering how much of a model it is for the rest of this fine country. I'm here planning his stops and when I saw your shop I couldn't help but wonder if the President could enjoy some of your sweets on his way through."

"Yes! Of course he can! I would be honored to have him here!"

Patriotism. Nationalism. It was rampant in the United States after the Revolution. Being a representative of the President here, at this time, held the same weight as being a representative of the Queen in London in 1953.

"If that's the case, I would like to sample some of your items, if that's alright. If I'm going to recommend it, I have to have something to say about it, eh?"

"Oh course, sir. Let me get you a platter. Go on and have a seat and I'll bring it out."

The Doctor winked at Grace and led her to one of two tables in the little shop. It was wooden, probably carved by hand. Grace sat across from him, positively giddy.

"He talks funny," she whispered.

"Well, you'll hear a lot of that here. To them, I talk funny."

"You sound funny to me, too, for the record."

He smiled. "Right. And leave it to you to find a sweets shop in 1851."

"I sensed the sugar. It was calling to me."

"I should tell you more about this time period, before we explore too much. But after this." He nodded to the shopkeeper, who was doling out samples of his different types of candy. "Some of it might be… hard to swallow."

"Why is that?"

"It just might seem very… archaic to you. I need you to be sensitive to the culture here."

"Fine."

She had no idea what she was agreeing to, and the Doctor let it be for now.

She ate a little of everything the shopkeeper brought to them, complimenting him on every morsel. He enjoyed the praise and ended up sitting with them. Grace drilled him on the town, but she smartly avoided mentions of the future. She caught on quickly. Her questions focused instead on the Smith family, who were presently out of town and would return within the next two days. She also asked about their government, how they had acquired the streets and mosaic walls, and what types of animals they kept. She surprised the Doctor with everything she said – he had assumed she was narrowly interested in the forest and the sweet shop, but her interests were much broader. She wanted to know everything. It was all piecing together in that odd head of hers.

When they left the shop, they strolled through town, admiring the brick walls the surrounded the beautiful homes. Up above, the streets were lined with colorful trees, and squirrels dashed in and out of their path. Everything was perfectly picturesque – the way the leaves cast shaded patterns on the sidewalk, the way the clouds streaked and blocked out the worst of the sunlight.

Near the last row of houses, where the pavement dropped abruptly into a dirt road, Grace dropped into a crouch and started whistling. From behind one of the houses, a black-and-golden dog trotted out, approaching cautiously with its head low.

"How did you know it was there?" the Doctor asked.

Grace shrugged, getting onto her knees when the dog refused to come any closer. She held both hands out, making kissing noises. "Come here. Hi. Hello. Look at you."

When she got her hands on it, she gave its head a good scratch, and the dog lost its cautious. The Doctor joined her, searching for a collar. "Could be a stray, or it could belong to any of the farms around here. Dogs actually played a pivotal role in agriculture in this region. This one looks like a herder." He couldn't help himself. He scratched her ear. "Oh yes you do. Yes you do!"

The dog had its fill of attention and wandered off. Grace nudged him. "So you like animals?"

"Love em. Most of the time."

"Unless they try to eat you, I suppose."

"No. They're just being honest to their nature."

"I've never had a dog, but other families around the neighborhood do. Before – in the other world – there weren't any."

They started walking again, right through the town center, which featured a pretty fountain, and headed down a road that ended at the lake. The Doctor found himself babbling for the sake of keeping his companion entertained. She seemed awfully sad about the dog.

"Fun fact about ice-cream: It was served in the court of Louis XIV – the king of France – in the seventeenth century. Here in the United States, it took a little longer to catch on, but once it did the most popular flavor was lemon."

"Is that what that puffy yellow stuff was?"

"Yeah, well, the texture would be a lot different from what you're used to. Funny thing, though, chocolate was a known and well-loved thing in these times, and yet they seemed to shy away from it when it came to ice-cream."

"Oh, I love chocolate."

"I know. That's why I brought it up."

"What else was it you wanted to tell me about this place?"

The Doctor stopped at the lake, guiding her to a bench. The sun was starting to set, producing silhouettes of fishermen and houses along the water. It looked like a postcard.

"Do you see that out there in the distance?"

"The big house?"

"Not a house. That's a plantation. North Carolina, for years before now and for centuries after, was one of this nation's biggest exporters of two key crops – cotton and tobacco."

"Okay. And?"

"And… Okay, let me start again. In 1829 a man named David Walker wrote a pamphlet… No. That's no good. Uh. Okay. Well, in this time, people sort of… owned other people. They had slaves who did their work for them, who cooked and cleaned and never got paid."

Grace waited. "Slavery. Is that what you're so caught up on?"

"I know you've heard of it, but not like this. Not _quite_ like this, anyway. In your time, mentions of slavery are about aliens, mostly. And it's done with no regard for anything other than situation. If a person is stuck in their bills, they become a slave. Right?"

"Right."

"Here, it wasn't like that. People were scooped up and sold from other countries and taken here to work. Specifically, brown-skinned people from parts of Africa and other colonial territories."

"So?"

"Honestly I thought you would be more broken up about it."

It was strange. In her time slavery was a punishment. It was well-known and understood as something people had brought on themselves – and though he disagreed with it, it was accepted in that context. But here it was radically different. It was violent. It was terrible. It was obviously not clicking for her – or it did click, and she didn't care either way.

He hoped she was just not grasping it.

"Well, that was it, then." He cleared his throat. "That was the thing I wanted to tell you."

"No, hold on, what about the pamphlet? You said there was a guy and a pamphlet."

"David Walker. He was a free black man. He wrote and published a pamphlet calling for the immediate freedom of all slaves and urging them to rebel as a group. He was born here. Copies of his pamphlet spread through the state and made slave owners fear that their slaves would rebel."

"What happened then?"

For all of her childish distractions, Grace was very intent on stories. She liked to listen.

"Uh, well, in 1830 North Carolina passed a law against distributing the pamphlet."

"Was that it?"

"No. They also passed a law that made it illegal to teach slaves to read or write."

"Why?"

"Knowledge is power." He wondered if he might make the topic clearer to her. She was interested enough. "Five years later they passed a law preventing free blacks from voting, attending school, or even preaching in public."

"I wanted to say 'why' again, but I figured you would repeat that first thing."

"I would have. Because that's why they did it. They brought them here, and they put them to work, and they silenced them and took away their rights – what little they might have had. For decades upon decades, they were a pivotal, but hated population. It wasn't illegal to hurt them, or even to kill them. They were bought and sold like cattle at auction – whole families."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because when you see one, and I'm certain you will, I want you to understand the atmosphere of the times. You have a good heart. It'll sting."

"But they eventually got away, right? Because it's not like that in my time."

"I suppose you could say that. It took a very long time, but eventually they changed their own circumstances. In a few years' time a war will rock these lands, and the topic is slavery. In fact, this little town gets obliterated."

Grace turned around, looking back at the edges of the town as the sinking sun showed them.

Finally, she seemed to grasp the gravity of time travel. She leaned into his shoulder for a while, thinking on his words, and then her eyes got a little glassy. "How can you do it? How can you sit here and know that, and do nothing about it?"

"Because it already happened." He shifted his arm from the bench to her shoulders, giving her a gentle hug. "And it had to happen. It was a war that changed this country for the better. It was a war that allowed them to participate in others, in the future, and that allowed you to live in your time, and a billion, billion others to live in their times. Not all of those lives were happy, but they were all necessary."

She sighed. "Do you have to make everything sound so grand?"

"It's my specialty."

Grace tilted her head, smiling at him. There was something special about her expression in the light of a sunset. "We got nothing done today."

"I thought we could make it a leisure day. We can be productive tomorrow."

She nodded. "Sounds perfect."

He was really painfully enthralled with this girl. He had accidentally put himself in a scene from a romance novel. He was sitting on a bench beside a lake, ignoring the gorgeous setting sun and looking into her eyes instead. And he was perfectly content. He forgot the things that had troubled him. He forgot their conversation about the unfortunate history of this area.

She clouded his mind so easily that it seemed, again, to be on purpose.

Just before the sun set, the moment had to end.

Something rumbled all around them, as deep and resonant as thunder. But the Doctor detected it was something else. Grace jumped straight to her feet.

He stood up as well, more cautious, and watched the lake change before his eyes. Mist, as thick as smoke, clawed its way up from the water. It filled the sky. It was dark out, but the mist made it that much darker. It was advancing, growing, and rumbling.

"Doctor?" Grace backed to the other side of the bench.

"What is that?" He squinted, wishing it had come _before_ the sunset. The rumble struck even louder, making his hearts skip a few beats each.

Grace grabbed him. "Run!"

He fled with her, but he doubted anyone could escape an entity moving that fast. It overwhelmed them, and covered the sky, and shook the ground, and made the world extraordinarily smaller.

But as they reached the street, and as the mist reached the edge of the lake, it stopped. It formed a barrier, a sort of shifting wall, that went up above them, and seemed to encircle the whole town. People emerged from the shops and from their homes. The Doctor and Grace backed into the town square, where everyone seemed apt to gather.

They stood there, completely surrounded, and stared into the mist.


	20. The Mist

**Chapter 20.**

 **The Mist.**

The Doctor stood to watch the wall of mist as it rose up into the sky. It formed a solid wall all the way around the town. While the two of them turned to watch its progress, they bumped into each other, and shared a look that told him they both understood the sudden gravity of the situation.

"Come on." The Doctor took Grace's hand. They walked back up the street, where people were emerging from their homes and stores, and followed them into the town center. Up above, the mist rolled and coiled like a living creature, never getting closer, but never showing the sky beyond. It was a perfect dome, like a force-field. But what in the world was causing it?

Ideas were verbalized as the town gathered. Over sixty people muttered and cursed, trembled and whispered. Some huddled together, some stood alone, and some pointed knives at the mist.

He could sense the building tension. These people were on the verge of panicking.

"Listen! Everyone!" The Doctor put his hands up, trying to gather the attention of the crowd. He made his way to the center, with Grace following, and caught as many eyes as he could. "Everyone needs to remain calm! Just stay calm and listen for a moment!"

Slowly, gradually, the murmur died down, and the Doctor had the floor.

He surveyed the gathered faces – simple farmers, merchants, and homesteaders from a very simple age in American history, and decided that none of them were outward criminal masterminds. If there was a plot afoot, they all looked sufficiently terrified to have no part in it.

"Does anyone know what might be happening?" He waited, finding dozens of blank stares coming his way. "Did anyone see where that sound came from?"

Shaking heads.

He was going to ask if there was anything new about the town, or anyone who didn't belong, but that would get a lot of fingers pointed in his direction. He decided against it.

Suddenly one of the men jumped backward, igniting the crowd to move away from him. Someone bumped a horse and stirred its panic. It gave its owner a fierce bucking and broke away.

It ran straight for the mist.

Its handler gave chase.

The Doctor went after him. " _Stop_!"

In a line of three, they advanced on the gray wall of smoke, and just as the horse shot through it, the Doctor got his arms around the man who was chasing it. He stopped him just short of the barrier, and before their feet had come to a full stop on the pavement, they heard the crying.

It was the horrible sound of a dying animal.

The Doctor released the man, staggering back a little. His curiosity about what the mist was capable of was immediately satisfied. It was a devourer. It was some kind of plague.

He stood in stunned silence.

"W-What happened to her?" The man, tall, bulky, and dark-skinned, and wearing what amounted to old rags, seemed to want to go after the animal, even after hearing its cries.

The Doctor got a hand on his shoulder and urged him away from the edge. "Get away from it."

"B-B-But-"

"I'm terribly sorry about your horse." The Doctor took his shoulders under both hands, whispering urgently. "But we have to get away from it. Just walk slowly away with me. Don't run."

The man nodded, and they began side-stepping away.

"Easy now. Just like that."

Gradually they put distance between themselves and the mist, until they were close enough to the crowd to let the Doctor breathe again.

He patted the man on the shoulder. "Good. Excellent."

"What happened to her?" the man repeated.

Another bystander caught onto the same question. "Where the hell is the horse?"

Other voices chimed in.

"What does it want?"

"God is punishing us!"

It became a torrent of words and statements, some as loud as they could manage, some desperate whispers. People were searching for their loved ones. People were telling others who was missing. They worried about the wrath of God. They feared the work of demons.

"Doctor?"

His attention was captured by his companion, who emerged from the crowd. She finally looked like she belonged there, in her dusty period dress, with her pale face and worried eyes. She fit right in with the terrified crowd. It was her first official journey with him, and it was going sideways.

"What's happening?" she asked, huddling up close to him. She looked all over, her eyes flickering between townspeople. "Was this supposed to happen? What happened to the horse, Doctor?"

He saw something strange in her. The flood of voices was bothering her a lot more than it should have. Her terror grew with every second. If she was an alien, as he believed, her species might have been more accustomed to silence. It might have a hard time focusing on multiple individual sounds and prioritizing them. He knew of a few species that operated that way.

The Doctor put his hands firmly over her ears, and as his palms cut off the air to her eardrums, her eyes shot to his face. Tears dripped down them.

"Listen." He released his palms a little. "Listen to me. Only to me."

She nodded, but she was still afraid.

He wrapped her in a hug and held her there, giving her a safe place to look out from. He looked around, too, and tried to glean knowledge from the panicked conversations. No one seemed to have the faintest idea what was happening.

Finally, someone took charge. Judging by his tailored, plaid suit, it was the mayor. He stood on the lip of the fountain and yelled for silence, looking wearily at the mist.

"Everyone gather in the town hall! Peter, David, and Eugene, meet on the steps!"

The crowd was mobilized. The Doctor released Grace and took her hand, and they joined the back of the procession to the town hall.

She was gathering her composure.

"Have you seen something like that before?" she wondered.

"No. Common topic in scary stories, though."

"Did it…? The horse…?"

"I think the horse is gone. I have a few theories. Working theories."

Everyone assembled in the town hall. Grace's eyes lingered on the line of black slaves waiting at the steps to come in last. She looked at him, but said nothing. The man he had stopped from entering the mist nodded at him as he passed, and the Doctor nodded back.

It was honestly more like a church than a town hall, with comfy pews and velvety carpets, and a giant statue at the front. He sat with Grace against the wall, in the back, one arm around her shoulders, and watched the people get settled. How they arranged themselves said a lot about who they were in this little community. He could already see who was the wealthiest, who was revered, and who was disliked. The slaves sat at the back near Grace and the Doctor, keeping their eyes carefully away from anyone who wasn't one of them.

Grace stayed very close to him, looking around them with wide eyes. This was not the first experience he had wanted her to have in another time. He wondered if she would ever come out with him again, after getting trapped like this.

Getting trapped seemed to be an intense fear of hers.

"So much difference."

The Doctor frowned. "What?"

She motioned to the front. "Look at them. Look at what they're wearing. Layers and layers, probably sweating to death, and then you got these guys back here."

"Social stratification. It's common all over the world, and on other planets."

"I know what it is, it's just… not usually so visible."

"I suppose not. These people must live less than a mile apart, but they won't ever share the same sidewalk."

"Did your people have that?"

"Stratification? Of course. But not like this."

"How was it, then?"

"Complicated."

She watched him, losing her fear for curiosity, but didn't push for answers. She settled in, resting her head on his shoulder, and went on watching the locals. "What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know yet. I'm thinking."

"You should take charge. You're a natural leader."

"Well they've already got a mayor, and foreigners aren't exactly trust here. I think I would just get myself thrown outside."

"So your plan is to just… sit here?"

"For now. It could be any number of things at the moment – a big old dome made of mist, a carnivorous plague of microorganisms, a new kind of chemical warfare, an alien invasion, etcetera. Sometimes it's best to just observe, and see what happens."

She nodded, wiping her sleeve over her eyes.

"But I'll tell you one thing. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Grace laughed, wiping her eyes once more. "I believe you."

The mayor went around lighting candles, illuminated the place as the light faded outside. Over an hour passed, filled with the murmurs of the townspeople, and one by one they succumbed to sleep. Grace slumped on his shoulder, one hand gripping the front of his overcoat. He set his mind loose, going over the possibilities, from the very unlikely to the very likely.

As he mulled over the possibilities, and just as the town hall seemed to find some kind of collective peace despite all of their fears, it came again.

A sound like thunder vibrated the floor beneath them.

Children cried.

The flames dimmed and the room darkened.

It made the Doctor wonder if the dome was closing in on them.


	21. It Is Definitely a Nightmare

**Chapter 21.**

 **It Is Definitely a Nightmare.**

Deep into the night, when most of the townspeople had managed to get back to sleep after the last rumbling – and confirmation from the patrolling men that the dome of mist was not actually closing in on them –, and Grace was sleeping soundly with her head in his lap, the Doctor was wide awake and thinking. Others refused to sleep as well. Sentries stood by the doors, popping them open every now and then to reassured themselves that the mist was not on the other side. Children had the most trouble, and their parents stayed up with them. And despite the unusual situation and the fact that everyone was most certainly in the same boat, the slaves stayed awake and catered to their owners, braving the outside to fetch things from their homes.

When he could sit still no longer, the Doctor slid out from under Grace and bundled up his duster, offering it as a pillow when she grumbled something at him. He walked the aisles, assuring himself that the sleeping people were out of harm's way for the moment. They were shaken, but humans were very resilient. It took much more to break them.

He found a family awake near the front. It was a young woman with her parents. He gave a little bow as he approached, smiling and sitting in a nearby pew. "Can I get you anything?"

The old woman, perhaps deep into her sixties – which was an accomplishment for this time period – smiled at him. "No, darling, I have everything I need. Sal told me about you. You came on behalf of the President, right?"

"That's right. You can call me the Doctor."

"I'm Mary Pitcher, my husband is Don – he doesn't hear well. And Susan is our daughter."

He looked at each of them, nodding, giving a friendly smile despite the disinterested looks he got in return. "Mrs. Pitcher, how long have you lived in New Fountain?"

"I was born here."

"Ahh. Quite a history." He enjoyed her confidence. He reasoned it came from her age. Older women, particularly in the south, were seen as matriarchs, even when a patriarch existed. It was a lot like England in that way. There was just something about a grandmother that evoked respect.

"What about you, Mr. Doctor. Where are you from?"

"Oh, it's just the Doctor, and I come from very far away." He leaned in a little, quieting their conversation as to not disturb the others around them. "Let me ask you, Mrs. Pitcher, if I may, have you seen anything odd in town in the last few days?"

"Other than you?"

"Yes, other than me."

"No. Not a thing."

The Doctor sat back, biting his lip. A perfectly normal town, and a perfectly abnormal phenomenon. If it was a plague of microorganisms, what had attracted it?

"You're asking because of the smoke, right? Do you know what it is?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe if something had changed… are you sure nothing strange happened in the last few days? Doesn't have to be too big. Burn any witches at the stake? Lynch anyone? Discover a meteor? Whole town gets purple spots?"

Thankfully, she didn't follow most of his question. "No. Everything's normal."

He took a knee in front of her, took her hand, and kissed the back of it. "Thank you, Mrs. Pitcher. You've been very helpful. I appreciate it."

"Aren't you a classy young man!"

"I try to be."

He left Mrs. Pitcher and moved across the front of the hall, catching the eyes of everyone who was awake and gauging candidates for conversation. Some looked absolutely hostile.

The mayor was sitting on the corner of the stage. He was a good choice.

"Mr. Mayor, if I might have a word." He sat nearby, nodding respectfully.

"Who are you?" The man turned toward him, frowning, and gave his beard a nervous flattening.

"Uh, you can call me the Doctor. I was here surveying for the President." He flashed his psychic paper, and a very convincing smile. "Do you know what's going on here?"

"No idea." The mayor relaxed, shaking his head.

"Has anything strange happened lately?"

The conversation went almost the same as it had with Mrs. Pitcher. No, nothing strange. Yes, he was sure. Yes, he would notice if anyone was acting strangely. No, he had never see the mist before. It was a decidedly unhelpful situation.

His next course of investigation was a little riskier.

He went to the sentries and cracked the door, slipping outside. It was eerily quiet, and perfectly dark. He produced his flashlight and walked out into the town square, shining it up through the roiling layers of mist up above. What a strange thing it was.

One street at a time, he went to the edge, right up to the mist, and tried to get a sense for it. It smelled of nothing. His screwdriver identified it as nothing more than regular mist – water vapor suspended in the air, dark gray in color, for whatever reason. He tossed a brick into it and caught the distinct sound of it being pulverized inside.

And every time he backed away from it instead of turning and walking off. He got the strange sense that he should keep facing it. It was predatory, after all. It might reach out and catch him.

"You are very strange." The Doctor stood at the barrier near the lake, talking to the mist and hoping it would talk back. At least that would give him a clue as to what it was. "What are you doing here? What do you want? Why are you just hovering there? You could gobble everyone up nice and easy – you could have done it earlier. You had me and Grace. You were right on top of us. So how did we get out?"

It was silent and lifeless.

It was a very strange predator.

The Doctor went back inside after a while, satisfied that the barrier of mist would shred anything that tried to pass through it, but that it wasn't steadily moving toward them. It was also plain old mist, not a lifeform, or an entity. If it _was_ a lifeform, it was something his screwdriver had never scanned before, and that was an unnerving idea all by itself.

Grace was still asleep. He hovered over her for a little while, making sure she was warm and that no one had bothered her, and then he got to wandering again. He hit the other side of the hall this time, chatting with a family in the corner, getting a cold shoulder from the sentries, and trying to convince the uppity men sitting in the center rows to talk to him. It was laborious. He put on his best, proper English accent and convinced them he was a very important person. It was the only way they would speak, and they still turned their noses up at him.

He finished his loop with the slaves at the back, finding willing taking partners who knew nothing of what was going on. Even though they were the easiest to talk to, they would not look up to meet his eyes. He wished they would sleep, because every one of them looked exhausted.

The man on the end, who had a seven-year-old girl in his lap, was the same one the Doctor had stopped from going into the mist after the horse. He watched his procession through the room and brightened when the Doctor got to him. He wanted to talk.

"Can I get you anything?" The Doctor sat in front of him, winking at the little girl. Her cheek pulled in a cautious half-smile.

The man stroked his daughter's hair flat. "Thank you for stopping me."

The Doctor noted his speech patterns, very detached from the jumpy drawl of his compatriots. "You seem upset. Do you have someone on the other side of the wall?"

"My son. He's on the plantation. Polly and me came out here to meet the wagon, get some seeds. But then everything happened. Do you think…? What happened to them?"

"I don't know. I hope nothing. I hope this is isolated." The Doctor noted the sheepish expression on the little girl and dug in his pockets. "Is she allowed candy?"

"She's never had it."

He found a penny candy and held it out to the child. "Here. It's got caramel on the inside. It might make you feel better."

She stared at him, making no move for the treat. The Doctor offered it to the father instead. He took it, handed it to the girl, and they both watched her chew cautiously.

"There she is." The Doctor smiled. "I'm the Doctor by the way, and you are?"

"Henry." He nodded. "I didn't want to ask, but-"

"I'm from far away." The Doctor went through his pockets again, happily locating another candy. He popped it into his mouth. "So, tell me, Henry, do you know anything about this?"

"No. It seems like a nightmare."

"It is. Oh, it is definitely a nightmare." The Doctor looked around, nodding to himself. "It's a nightmare for all these different people to get shoved into a building together. Those ones in the middle, who are they?"

Henry looked around him, at the well-dressed family in the center of the room. "Plantation owners."

"Oh. Big money, then, if they own all that."

Henry nodded.

The Doctor sat with them for a while, keeping an eye on Grace and listening for the rumbling. He wondered if the family could have anything to do with the mist, and then decided against it, since they seemed appalled to be sharing a room with the normal townsfolk. In fact, nobody looked particularly suspicious. His theories began to center on alien interference.

"Shh, shh. You have to be quiet." Henry tried to keep Polly from crying. The little girl started whimpering, and she hugged his neck. It reminded the Doctor of how Grace had responded to the panic earlier.

He sat up on his knees. "Polly. Can you talk to me, Polly?"

She peeked at him from her father's shoulder, big brown eyes full of tears.

"Hello, sweetheart."

Polly stared at him, and then whispered in a raspy voice, "Hello."

"I'm going to do everything I can to make sure everybody is alright. You don't have to be scared." He dug through his pockets for something that might amuse a child, and came up with another candy. Close enough. "Here. If you eat this, you have to promise me that you'll be brave. You have to help your daddy so he won't be scared, okay?"

Polly took the candy, shifting to sit on Henry's knee. She chewed thoughtfully, and then smiled at him. It was a wonderful sight.

He only hoped he could keep his promises to her.


	22. A Shimmer

**Chapter 22.**

 **A Shimmer.**

John was the biggest advocate for the worst solutions. He wanted to fight the mist head-on like one would attack an enemy. Even though he had heard the cries of the dying horse with his own ears, and heard the Doctor describe what happened to the brick when he tossed it through, he was absolutely certain, beyond any doubt, that he could fight a path through the mist.

On the opposite side of the table was Jacob. He had more moderate ideas, but in the end he really wanted to join John in attacking the mist – he disagreed with the methodology. He thought they should load up the cannon sitting atop the town hall and blow the hell out of the barrier. The Doctor insisted this might make matters worse, and Samuel agreed with him, but John latched onto that idea and ran with it. He insisted only the canon could make a dent in the mist.

Samuel, also known as the mayor, was the most apt to wait it out. He insisted that they had the supplies to last a few days and that they should observe the mist for a while and figure out what it was going to do. He sided with the Doctor more often than not.

The Doctor tried to convince the three of them, the loudest voices among the assembled men, that they should avoid provoking the mist. He used an analogy, suggesting that the demons would attack when they were attacked, and brought the very real possibility of an attack to the table. He discouraged the cannon idea. If the barrier came down lower because of it, it might lop off the top half of the building and crush everyone inside.

When it came down to it, Samuel got the last word. He listened to everyone, and decided he wanted to wait and see. He hoped the sun would rise soon and make the whole event less eerie.

The Doctor kept it to himself, but he knew the sun should have risen by now.

When he got the chance to pose a question to the group, he kept it short and simple. The men were agitated, and there was no use in stirring the hornet's nest.

"Aside from me, has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?"

Blank stares. He was getting a lot of those.

"What about strange weather? Snow in the summer? Weird things in the sky? Did anyone die in the last few days? Have you seen any odd animals around?"

"What are you getting at, Mr. Doctor?" John demanded.

He was getting tired of being addressed like that. "It's just the Doctor, and I'm trying to figure out what might have caused this. There has to be a reason."

"You're the only thing that changed." John was stating the obvious, but he seemed pleased with himself. He was likely to lead the lynch mob, if it got down to that. The Doctor made note to stay away from him in the future.

Mayor Samuel got up, straightening his suit. "Okay, everyone. Get back to your families. Go on, now. Spread the word. Everyone stays put for now."

While the room emptied, the Doctor kept an eye on John, and John kept an eye on him. Humans, in small groups, with a little fear and one instigator, could make rash decisions. If John decided to spread his thoughts on the Doctor, he might start something that put him and Grace in danger.

"Doctor?" Samuel called him over.

"I have nothing to do with this, for the record," he said as he reached that side of the table.

"I didn't think you did. What man could cause this? But I was thinking about what you asked – the thing about the sky."

"Did you see something?"

Could there be at least one answer in this endless line of questions?

"I think so. I could have." Samuel pressed his mustache down, glancing at the window. "It was weeks ago. I thought I saw a shimmer in the sky, like glass fragments. It was gone as quickly as it came. It might not have been there at all."

"No, no. I think it was." The Doctor let that sink in. His swarm theory gathered more weight, but it was incomplete. "Was there anything else?"

"No. Nothing."

Grace was awake when he left the meeting room. When she saw him, she brightened, but overall she looked rather glum. He sat beside her and she wrapped both of her arms around one of his, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I was hoping all this was a nightmare."

What a great first impression.

"I'm sorry I got you into this."

She smiled, and the candlelight gave her eyes an enticing fire. "Don't apologize. I like it. I like being here with you, even if it's all crazy. How sad it that?"

"It's not sad."

"But it is. I hardly know you."

"So?"

Her smiled deepened a smidge, and she drifted closer. It almost seemed like she would kiss him, but she pulled away at the last moment, hanging him on the edge of a cliff.

"Do you know what's happening yet?"

"No." He tried to catch his breath. He wondered if she had done that on purpose, but, again, he dismissed it. She was very hard to read. "The mayor thought he saw a shimmer in the sky, and that would make it seem like some sort of swarm, but…"

"A swarm? Like bugs?"

"Something like that."

John stood up suddenly from the front of the hall, brandishing a long knife. His voice was explosive. It seemed that he had been having a conversation with the people around him, and what he shouted only constituted the tail end of it. " _Who's with me_?"

"Oh, no." The Doctor got to his feet, running to the aisle to cut the group off. They were storming toward the doors. "Stop! I know you want to do something, but you'll get yourself killed."

John pushed him aside, knocking him into the pews."

"My wife and Josephine are out there! You do what you want, Doctor, but I'm not sittin' in here another second! You best stay out of my way!"

Henry stepped into his path next. "Mr. John, you'll get yourself killed, sir!"

It was a lot less gentle with Henry. While the Doctor struggled out of the pew, Henry got a hard punch to the face. He hit the ground, and the men went right past him, out the door.

The Doctor grabbed Henry by the arm and helped him up. "We can't let them go!"

It became an event. Those who were awake streamed out of the town hall, some of them following John on a march toward the barrier, and some standing to see what would happen to them. The Doctor started running after them. He managed to get in front, holding both hands out.

" _Please_ , reconsider. I know you want to get to your family. I know that. But this will not help. If you step through it, it _will_ kill you."

John pushed past him again.

He had no other options. He stood about ten feet from the barrier. Grace caught up to him, wide-eyed, and Henry was not far behind. John hit the mist and continued on.

And his screams followed shortly after.

The Doctor flinched. Grace covered her ears. Henry looked away, clenching his jaw.

Silence dominated the darkness for several seconds.

Murmurs started up in the gathered townspeople. Someone screamed. Some of them rushed back into the building, and some fled across the street, going to their own homes. It was an impossible chaos and the Doctor couldn't get his voice above it.

And then the worst possible thing happened.

The rumble came again. The barrier of mist shimmered and began to advance across the pavement. The Doctor shoved Grace back and started running. Henry outpaced them, scooped up his daughter, and turned to stare at the encroaching mist.

It came forward twenty feet, and then went still.

Grace tried to ask, "What is it-?"

But the rumbling struck with more intensity, making the ground tremble beneath them. All eyes were on the mist as it morphed and changed along the bottom, showing a brief glimpse of the sunshine in the outside world, and then the barking started.

"Doctor?" Grace had his hand. She squeezed it, backing away. "Doctor, what is that?"

"It sounds like…" He squinted at the edges of the mist. It was unclear. He took out his flashlight and ran it across the bottom, and his blood went cold. " _Dogs_!"

Like creatures clawing their way straight out of the depths of Hell, the dogs came. They were figures of the mist, barking and growling, claws lunging forward, teeth exposed. The crowd gave a collective heave toward the town hall and absolute panic spread. Someone struck him and the flashlight rolled out of reach. Grace got pulled in the opposite direction, and he saw Henry get knocked down. The light spun, illuminating bits and pieces of the rushing crowd.

The dogs grew closer. He tried to get a tally of people. He pushed them toward the town hall. He shoved everyone he could get a hand on in that direction.

"Move! Run! Get inside! Go back inside!"

He pushed at the back of the line filing through the front doors. People were falling and stumbling all over each other, desperately trying to escape the furious pack of dogs.

Mrs. Pitcher was stuck on the stairs. He grabbed her under her arms and helped her up, practically carrying her to the top and pushing her through the doors. He got a stray child by the arm and threw him inside as well, and then called out to Samuel, who had been the last to linger. Samuel made a cross on his chest and ran inside as well.

The Doctor slammed the doors shut. Men appeared all around and started piling things against them. Like rain pelting the wood, the dogs slammed against it. Children cried inside the hall. Women covered their eyes and sobbed. The candles went out against the stream of bodies crowding into the back to escape the monsters outside.

 _Boom_.

The dogs piled up against the door in one collective crash. The Doctor and the other men threw their shoulders against the stack of furniture they had created, keeping it from toppling.

 _Boom_.

Their combined weights were barely enough to keep it closed. The doors opened a pinch and snapping, incorporeal muzzles were shoved through.

 _Boom_.

The doors jumped open, and then slammed shut.

Several seconds passed without a push. The rumbling came once or twice more. Women joined them at the door, and Grace paced behind them. They all looked at each other, listening and waiting for another push to come. The dogs had relented.

The Doctor turned and sank against the pile of furniture, panting. Grace had her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She watched the door, waiting for it to burst open.

She was thinking exactly what he was, what everyone was. Why had they stopped? When were they coming back? The Doctor took it a step further. What did they want? Why were they here? Were they just toying with their prey?

And the most important question.

Were they going to survive?


	23. Nothing Hurts Worse

**Chapter 23.**

 **Nothing Hurts Worse.**

In the candlelight, he looked more human than she had ever seen him. In daylight he looked normal enough, perhaps a little too intelligent and handsome for this era, all clean-shaven and lively, but very outwardly human. It was the spark in his eyes that really set him apart. Everything excited him. He looked at the world like it was all new to him, when she suspected he had seen it this way a hundred times before. He seemed to know everything, so every look also carried a deep wisdom, perhaps a memory. But in the candlelight that was stripped away. She could just see the edges of his cheeks, the planes below his dark brown eyes, the deep thought going on behind them. He looked a little afraid, a little concerned, a little fascinated, and very empathetic toward his conversation partner. It was very human.

She could have looked at him all day, wondering what he might be thinking, enjoying the way he spoke to everyone like they were fundamentally equal, despite the severe divisions in the room. But the man he spoke to was a father, and his sad little daughter was nearby, sniffling.

Grace sat with the girl, finding more to relate to in the girl's insecurity than in the Doctor's confidence. She had never seen anything like this before, either, and every day the memories of the corrupted world were slipping away from her – the shattering sky, the fading people, the loss of her father, and the kiss she had shared with the Doctor. It was more of a dream now. So now, in this body, she was new to it. She was new to the danger. It had shaken her to the core.

So when she spoke to the little girl, she did it just as much to distract herself.

"Do you go to school?"

Polly looked up at the question, her little lip trembling. She shook her head. It was a silly thing to ask, when Grace looked at the difference between this child and the others in the building. Polly was wearing rags. Her knees, elbows, and hands were dirty. In the rare instances when she looked up at Grace, she found a deep sadness staring back at her.

"Oh." Grace looked for something else to talk about, and noted the little wooden horse clenched in one of the girl's hands. "Do you like animals?"

Polly bit her lip, and then held the figure out in her palm. It reminded Grace of the little animals her father had carved for her before he went missing – tiny little horses, remnants of creatures he would never see in the flesh. What would he think of this place? What would he say if he found out Grace had actually seen a horse?

"I like dogs," Polly told her. She was well-spoken like her father.

"I like dogs, too."

"I don't like the ones out there."

"Me either." Grace took the figure, twisting it around to get a better look at it. She handed it back. "My dad used to make little animals for me. Did your dad make that?"

"No, my brother did."

Grace twisted her lips, finding another dead-end in this conversation. She met eyes with the Doctor, who wandered the room with Henry, and found his mind racing again. What was he thinking about? Hopefully he was coming up with a way to stop the stampede of ravenous dogs outside.

"I'm bad at talking to people," Grace admitted to the girl. "I guess because nobody ever talks to me. Except him. It's easy to talk to him."

"He saved daddy from the smoke."

"Yeah, he did. I think that's his thing. Saving people."

"Did you have a dog?"

Grace took her eyes off of the Doctor, watching the little girl making her little wooden horse walk across the floor between her legs. "No. I never got the chance. Did you?"

"Yeah. Her name was Lovely." Polly looked up briefly, frowning. "She died."

"I'm sorry." Grace felt strangely for this child. She could usually keep herself distanced from people – with the Doctor as the exception – but there was something about this kid that really spoke to her. It might have been the figurine. Or perhaps it was the loneliness the girl seemed to be harboring. Perhaps no one really spoke to her, either.

Polly went on, her voice low and sad. "Mister John shot her, 'cause she bit him. But she was just protectin' me, 'cause he hit me."

"Why did he hit you?"

Polly shrugged. "I talked back."

John must have been distantly related to her step-father.

"Well, I think you should always talk back." Grace settled in beside the girl, combing down her hair with her fingers and picking out the little pieces of straw. It looked like she had fallen when the crowds panicked earlier. "People like to lie, and if you never talk back they never admit it. Who made them so special, anyway?"

Polly paused her figure, frowning. "But what if they get mad at me?"

"So what if they do?"

"They might shoot me."

"You can shoot back."

"But daddy says we have to do what God wants, and treat others like we want to be treated."

"Sometimes that doesn't work on people. Sometimes it takes more than that." Grace thought of the people she had hurt, and sometimes killed, in the corrupted world, where the streets were as dark as the dome over them, and life was worth less than a loaf of bread. It was fuzzy like a dream, but the feelings were still there. "You have to use your judgement."

"Did you ever shoot anybody?"

"Yes."

"Were they bad?"

"Yes. And they didn't deserve to live. People like that, and people like John, are dangerous, and if you're strong enough, it's your job to stop them so they don't hurt someone who's not strong enough. It's just how the world works."

Polly nodded, running her hand over her eye. "I wish Lovely was here."

Grace looked up at the Doctor again. He was sitting on the stage, but he was staring across at her like he had heard every word she said, and there was deep disapproval in him. She spoke to Polly, but kept her eyes on her companion. "My friend says everything lives and dies for a reason, and with a purpose, but I think it's nonsense. Sometimes bad people kill innocent people, and dogs, for no reason, and then they just go on living like it's their right."

Polly shifted to look up at her. "But they deserve to die, too, 'cause God says you shouldn't ever kill anybody."

"Uh, right. I guess."

"Did somebody shoot your dog, too?"

Grace smiled. "No. But when I was little like you, somebody shot my dad. He got better, but it took him a long time. He had to go through a lot, just to go back to work. And they never caught the bad guy. And it always bothered me."

Polly was a smart kid. "Do you go to school?" She brought the conversation full circle.

"I do."

"Do you have a big house? And a mommy and daddy?"

"Sort of. I have my mom, and she got married to someone who's not my dad."

"Do you like him?"

"No. Not very much." Grace could feel the Doctor's eyes on her again, so she looked everywhere but the stage. She wondered if he was really watching, or if she was just paranoid. There were things she didn't want him to know – things that would change the way he looked at her.

Polly was watching her, too, and Grace caught a lump on the girl's cheek, where it had swollen up. She ran one finger down it, frowning. "Is that where he hit you?"

The girl nodded.

Grace did a sweep of the room, satisfied that the Doctor was turned away and talking to Henry. She twisted toward the wall and pulled her dress away from her collar, showing the girl a radiating purple bruise right over the bone. "When I talk back, I get hit, too. But I keep doing it."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Yeah, but I think it's worth it. It's better than shutting up." She slid back into her seat. "Nothing hurts worse than not being heard."

Polly smiled, finally, and lose the distressed sheen in her eyes. It was better that way, because she looked like a little girl again, instead of a sad painting. Grace watched her play, and swore her to secrecy, and repeated a few stories the Doctor had told her to keep her entertained.

And she watched him across the room, with his planning and theorizing. She thought if they could get out of this mess, she would ask him not to take her back home.


	24. My Home is Here

**Chapter 24.**

 **My Home is Here.**

"What were you two talking about?"

Grace watched the Doctor work, surprised he could ask questions with his elbows buried in a rudimentary computer of some sort. He was throwing it together with bits of metal, springs from the seats, and flashes from his little screwdriver, and somehow looking up at her constantly, curiously, and trying to interrogate her.

"Just about her toy."

"It looked a little serious to be about a toy."

"What is that thing?"

"Don't deflect."

"How about it's none of your business?"

"It is my business. This is your first excursion. You can't say anything that would alter the timeline. You already know what that causes."

"Yeah, but it was you who did it last time, so why are you so worried about me?"

The Doctor stood straight, staring at her, and she realized she had said too much. She clamped her jaw shut, but the damage was done. His eyes were wide. "So it _was_ me."

"I don't know what you mean."

He looked like he wanted to launch into a whole new series of questions, but he let it go. He just dropped it. It was a complicated problem, and they had more to worry about in the present. But the look in his eyes told her he was going to bring it up later.

"So what is that you're making?" Grace flicked the side of the box, which was made of a warped metal pot. "You gonna make 'em all some lunch?"

"No. It's a sort of filter. I want to see if I can extrapolate some of the swarm to figure out what it's made of. I need to isolate them to do that."

"Ahh. Do you think it'll work?"

"Probably not, but I don't have any other ideas, so there you have it." He smacked the contraption, shining his screwdriver at it again and then tucking it under his arm. "Do me a favor and open those doors if you hear me screaming."

Grace followed him to the doors, helping him remove the pile of furniture. They got strange looks from the guards, but they seemed too drained to intervene. It must have been midday by now and everyone was starving. The healthy supply of food had been rationed disproportionately to the crowd sitting in the middle of the hall – the wealthy ones.

Henry and Polly joined them at the door.

"Dangerous out there," Henry pointed out, though he was helping move the furniture.

The Doctor pressed his ear to the door for a moment, then pulled it open. He glanced at the three of them, nodding. "Right. Open the door if you hear screaming. Very simple."

Grace didn't like the idea of him being out there with the mist and the dogs, but when she thought of following him, a chill went down her spine. Maybe next time. She held the door open to watch him as long as she could, and when he was out of her sight, she stepped onto the stoop to listen. Henry joined her, and Polly lingered in the doorway.

"Your friend is very brave," Henry commented.

"Or stupid. Whichever way you want to look at it."

"You're very opinionated for a woman."

"You're very educated for a slave."

He frowned, and she felt she might have gone too far.

But it was too late to take it back.

The rumble erupted underfoot – the fourth time or so that same hour – and she heard the Doctor yelp. He came around the corner, shouting, tossing his little device. Behind him, a stream of barking dogs made completely of mist skidded into the road.

Grace was ready at the door. As soon as he was in, she slammed it shut, and she and Henry began stacking furniture. The people in the hall stirred, looking around wide-eyed as the dogs tried desperately to get in. The Doctor leaned over a pew and panted, holding his hand over his chest. He looked afraid and exhilarated.

"I think they're… I think they're…" He struggled to catch his breath. "I think they're coming in cycles. On a timer. Or something like that. They were just waiting at the mist. Just there."

The mayor, Samuel, came from the front. "You, sir, are becoming a nuisance!"

"I just wanted to extrapolate a few of them, to see what they were." The Doctor stood up, recovering his breath. "If I can identify them, I might be able to find a way to talk to them, or a weakness, if it comes to that."

"Listen to you, thinking you know everything!" One of the other men approached, poking the Doctor hard in the chest. "You're the reason John got killed!"

The Doctor held his ground. "Oh? I'm pretty sure we all saw him march out there of his own free will. I tried to stop him!"

"And you just went out to invite the dogs to our door!" the man accused.

"He was trying to help," Grace cut in. "And what have you been doing? You just sit around and puffing your chest out."

The man twisted to come toward her, but the Doctor stepped between them. "Relax. I don't want any violence. I just want to help. If we work together, we can solve this. We can figure out what's happening, and everyone can get out of here safely. But that won't work if you keep up with this."

"Why were you here again?" The man jabbed the Doctor in the chest again, and Grace felt a flash of protectiveness. If he did it again, she might just try and break that finger. "You show up sayin' you come for the President, but listen to you talk!"

Somehow the Doctor maintained his calm. Grace admired him for that. His voice was even.

"It doesn't matter. I'm trying to help."

"No, Doctor, everything was fine a few moments ago." Samuel looked at him coldly. "And all you've been doing since we got here is asking if we've seen anything strange, anything different. Well that's you, sir. You're the strange one. You're different. Listen to your accent! Listen to you talk! You're not from here – you or your lady friend."

His voice developed an edge. "Leave her out of this."

"Oh, I will, if you go quietly."

The Doctor stilled, and his expression darkened. "Go where?"

"Go outside." The mayor started moving furniture. "It's you it wants. It's obvious. Those dogs were coming after you."

Were they really going to try and throw out the only person who might actually be able to help them? Grace was appalled. "Those dogs were coming after everyone!"

The Doctor touched her arm, shaking his head. "Leave it. I'll go."

"But-"

"Shut it, or it'll be both of us. I need to be out there, anyway. No one in here knows anything and we're all just sitting ducks until we do." He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and mumbled under his breath, "Be careful."

The Doctor walked through the doors and stood on the stoop, looking sadly back inside as the doors shut in his face. Grace sat against them, refusing to move when the men wanted to stack the furniture again. They gave in, and Henry and Polly came to sit with her. The Doctor settled on the other side. She could feel him right behind her, like a warm spot through the wood.

"I've been counting. Every ten minutes or so, the rumbling comes." The Doctor sounded unafraid, but she knew it must have been terrifying, being out there with the mist. "It's accelerating every time. We must be working up to something."

"Like in the other world," Grace supplied.

"Exactly like that. Something is coming to a head. We have to find out what."

Grace glared at the nearby guard, who was more intent now to keep the Doctor from coming back inside. "I'll make them let you back in."

"No, just leave it for now."

"The dogs will come for you!"

"And they might throw you out with me. Where would that put us?"

Grace got up, ignoring his protests. She stormed down the center aisle, to the mayor and the other man who had suggested the Doctor be thrown out. They seemed like best friends now. She stopped as close as she could without actually crashing into them.

"You need to let him back in!"

Samuel cocked one bushy eyebrow and laughed at her. "And you need to learn some respect, young lady."

She hated being called that. Baxter called her that. "If those dogs come back, they'll kill him!"

None of the men seemed remotely sympathetic.

Grace tried a different tactic. "If he dies, I'll kill you."

"Right you will." Samuel laughed again. "Look at you all fired up."

Grace hit him – _hard_ – and before her hand came to rest she got a hard right hook to the cheek. She fell, her whole face tingling with the impact. The room gave a little spin, a little shake. And rage surged up in her stomach, an almost sickening amount.

She got back to her feet and lunged at the mayor, determined to do serious damage, but someone caught her around the waist.

Henry.

He lifted her, taking away her traction, and carried her away, apologizing as he departed. "I'm sorry, sir! She's just manic, that's all! Lost her good sense!" He tightened his grip when she struggled. "I'll take her away, let her cool down! Apologies, sir!"

He carried her into another room and dropped her in the middle of the floor, slamming the door shut before she could make a break for it. Polly had followed them. She looked distressed. Grace charged Henry, but he was at least a foot and a half taller and made of concrete – hitting him was like running into a truck.

Henry pushed her back effortlessly. "Calm down! Do you know what those men will do to you?"

Grace tried to dodge around him, groaning when he grabbed her arm and sent her staggering backward. "Do you know what I'll do to _them_?"

"Yeah, nothin', with no weapon and all hundred pounds of you."

"Okay, _bite me_. And get out of my way!"

"The Doctor saved my life, and I owe it to him to keep you from getting yourself hanged!"

Grace gave one last pitiful attempt, and then her shoulders slacked. He was right. She was outnumbered. She had no weapon. Getting into a fight with the mayor and his friends would not get the Doctor back. Besides, her head throbbed. Blood dripped down her chin from a split in her lip. The mayor had a lot of power behind his punch.

Henry shifted from frustrated to sympathetic. He put his hand on her shoulder and urged her toward the back of the room, pulling two parlor chairs out of a stack. "Sit down. Let me look at that."

He handed his daughter a pack of matches, and the girl went around the room and lit some candles. It turned out to be a small place, like a storage area, with show props and pictures on the walls. There was a back door, locked with heavy metal, and plenty of chairs. Henry dabbed at her lip with a strip he tore from an expensive-looking curtain.

"What was that voice you did?" Grace wondered, allowing herself to calm down, if only for the somber mood of the room. Candlelight did that to her.

Henry shrugged. "Something they like to hear."

"They like to hear you sound like an idiot? Because that's how you sounded. Stupid."

"I know. That's what I was going for." He pulled out his own chair and sat in front of her, giving a little smile. "It makes them feel better. You should try it."

"Screw that."

"You're very… outgoing for a woman. You and that Doctor – you match. You must come from some other place, to be allowed to talk like that."

"Oh, I'm not allowed where I come from, either. But it doesn't stop me."

"Polly told me that she wants to be just like you." He beckoned the girl over, lifting her into his lap. "And I keep thinking, what a bad thing to be! That'll get you killed! But now that I've seen it in action, I like it. No one has ever hit the mayor like that."

Grace shifted, a little embarrassed by his praise. "He deserved it."

Henry was quiet for a little while. He braided his daughter's hair, whispering comforts to her. As she watched him she wondered about his life, about his thoughtful eyes. The Doctor had described this form of slavery to her, and though it sounded very different from what they had in her time, she had imagined it was similar. Now she doubted herself.

When she looked at people, she felt their pain as a pit in her own stomach. She could feel him wondering, feel his fear – and it was not just fear of the mist, of the unknown, but of the mundane. It was his life. She almost wanted to leave herself wondering, but her curiosity got the better of her. What could be so horrible that it permeated the air like that?

"What's it like to be a slave?"

He cocked an eyebrow, and then chuckled. Despite all the fear inside, he managed to be lighthearted. He was like the Doctor in that respect – no wonder the two of them got along.

"You must be from further away than I thought."

"Yeah. I'm from really far away. And I don't get it. Don't you get sick of doing whatever other people want? Don't you just want to leave?"

"Of course I do. More than anything. But where would I go? How could I protect my family?"

Grace thought of what the Doctor told her about this time. There were laws in place against his freedom. It was not a crime to kill him. Did that mean anyone, at any time, if they found him disagreeable, could just get rid of him? How did he live like that?

"You could come with us, when this is all over. The Doctor could find you another place to live."

"My home is here. We can only hope that things will change one day." Henry could not possibly understand what she was offering him, but she thought she saw a little spark in his eyes.

She knew things would change, but the Doctor said it took a very long time.

Polly slid out of her father's lap and curled up on the carpet, yawning, probably ravenous, since the food rarely made it all the way to the slaves. Grace felt an impossible symmetry with her again. She had once lived on the streets, in that dreamlike world they had corrected. She could remember fighting for scraps with her mother after her father went missing, and before Baxter stepped into their lives. She had looked as downtrodden as that little girl, and wore two faces to protect herself from people who couldn't understand.

Henry had very thoughtful eyes, like the Doctor, and they focused on Grace for a while. "She said she told you about her dog. About what John did."

Grace nodded.

"I'm glad he's dead. But it wasn't just the dog. Lovely was a few days ago, yeah, but John did more than that. He killed my wife. And he'll never go to trial. She got buried out in the field and we went back to work the same day. He had a temper, so I lost her. Simple as that."

Grace let that sink in. She let herself in on his pain.

He went on, quiet, determined, as if imparting these words was suddenly more important than the peril of this situation, as if no one had ever asked him this question before, and he was determined to get the answer right, to do it justice.

"I can read. I've read all sorts of things, from all sorts of places. Gives me a taste of freedom, just to hear about people roaming the countryside. No fear. No responsibilities. No scars on their backs, no calluses on their hands. I think about how nice that must be, and I dream about it, and I tell my kids about it, but I know – oh, I _know_ – that my life will never be like that. It never goes further than this. It never moves past this point, right where we are, right here. I might never step out of this town for the whole rest of my life. Polly might never step out of this town, and her kids might not, and their kids. We can dream, and wish, and want, but it's never enough."

He swallowed, nodding to himself, and he cast a glance down at his daughter to add to the gravity of his words, because they also applied to her.

He concluded grimly, firmly, "That's what it's like to be a slave."

Grace had to look away. His story made it hard to breathe. She had always been able to see a little more than everyone else – to taste their lust, their greed, their rage more strongly – but she usually shied away from it. People were horrible. People were cruel. But this man was an open wound, and no matter how much it stung to be so close to him, she couldn't bring herself to shut out his pain. It was important. She wanted to understand it.

"I almost wish I couldn't read," Henry went on. "I wouldn't know that there _was_ anything else. But then, I think, I would miss out on it, even if it's only in my dreams. At least I get to dream."

Grace swallowed the lump in her throat. "Just stop talking for a second. Stop."

"I'm sorry, I-"

"No, don't apologize." She wondered how she could explain what she was feeling. It seemed impossible. "I asked, and you answered. I'm glad you told me that. But it just… you have to give me a second, because what you said is just…" She shrugged, running her sleeve over her face. She yelped when the fabric of the stupid, puffy dress caught on her busted lip.

Henry jumped a little at the sound, frowning. "You're crying for _me_?"

"I hate that you can't have what you want." Grace gathered her words, and forced them out. "It's so simple. It's stupid! Why can't you just…? Do they even realize that you're a person? How do you forget about something like that? I'm sorry, it just… confounds me. That's the word. I can't wrap my head around it. I wouldn't even believe that this was happening if I wasn't _here_."

She paused, realizing the simplest statement to sum up her feelings.

"When this is all over, I get to walk away, and go home, and do whatever I want, whenever, and you and Polly have to stay here for the rest of your lives."

Henry had a strange expression, somewhere between understanding and confusion. She wondered if anyone had ever stated it to him that way, or if anyone ever really stopped to listen to him in the first place. If they did, how could they hurt him? How could they hurt Polly? What could be wrong with them to make them believe Henry was worth less than they were?

It was hard for her to wrap her head around, but she was trying. No wonder the Doctor had made such a big deal of it to begin with. He must have thought she was so cold, the way she responded.

But she wasn't. She was the opposite.


	25. I Want a Lot of Things

**Chapter 25.**

 **I Want a Lot of Things.**

It was all very terribly eerie outside. Beyond the solid barriers surrounding the town, and beyond the solid dome up above, there was a thin mist settling over all the streets. The Doctor wandered from the town hall and ran his hands through it, watching it dance around in the air like wisps of smoke that refused to dissipate. But what was it made of? Certainly not water vapor. It was too organized. It was meant to float around and fade away, not hover in the air.

He walked the town center over and over, looking down each street, assuring himself that the barrier was not moving. But it was growing foggier out. It was becoming more like a dream. Everything was hushed. No birds singing, minimal light, no breeze. It was impossible to know what time of day it was, and on what day.

Suddenly the sound of hooves started up behind him. He ducked to the side as a massive, magnificent horse trotted past and vanished just as quickly. It was like a ghost, like a memory, completely shrouded in the mist.

He started noticing more images appearing around town. He saw the same dog at the tailor, and then walking along the barrier, and then jumping over one of the beautiful mosaic walls. He saw beams of false sunlight, and piles of grain and meat that were never there, and supply wagons passing by, all of them completely made of mist. It was fascinating. It was telling. He was already forming a theory, and this one was the best yet.

And then he saw her.

She was on the road that lead to the lake. He would have missed her, had he not heard her mournful cry. He was captivated, walking closer, trying to make out the finer details.

It was a woman, created of mist, hovering on the street. Her eyes were hard to distinguish, but the line of her mouth was clear. She was sad. She was very enormously sad. He heard whispers of a voice all around him, and then she faded like all the other images.

He knew what was happening.

The Doctor went back to the town hall and banged on the front doors. "Let me in! I need to talk to my friend!" He waited, finding only silence. "Samuel, I know you're in there!"

His voice replied, "You are not permitted inside. Stop knocking at once."

The Doctor groaned. Leave it to humans and their fear to banish the only person who could help them. If there was one thing they were good at, it was destroying anything even moderately different from themselves – new ideas, new people, different species.

He circled the building, finding a back door and giving it a quick pop with his screwdriver.

He found Grace, Henry, and Polly inside, all looking at him like he was insane. Grace had a split lip and one of her eyes was darkened.

"What are you doing back here?" he asked, coming in and shutting the door behind him. They were stored away in a little supply room off the main hall. "Did Samuel put you in here? Did he hit you?"

"No." Grace gave Henry a sharp look, and then bounced up to the Doctor. "What happened?"

He wanted to know what had gone on while he was gone, because there seemed to be a bit of secret keeping going on between Grace and Henry, but he saved his questions for another time. "I think I know what might be causing this, but it's a little complicated." He winced, realizing he had a great deal more to explain to Henry. "Er, let's start with me not being from around here. I'm not. I'm from outer space. Up in the stars. I walk right on among them."

"Like God?" Polly asked, sitting up from a nap. She climbed into her father's lap.

"Er, no. Sort of. The point is, other things live up there, loads of 'em, and I think one of them is causing this." He got his own chair, joining them in a little circle of three. "Have you ever heard of genies, Grace?"

"Yeah. Three wishes, right?"

"Right. This is similar. It may have even been the reason those legends started up. I think we're dealing with a swarm of wish-makers."

Grace cocked an eyebrow. He had already lost her. "You're kidding, right?"

"Not at all. They're what I classify as 'emotional scavengers,' beings who feed on the emotional energy of everything around them. Usually they're harmless, but when they encounter a very powerful desire, they can begin to clump up. These particular scavengers are wish-makers – I've never found a real name for them, so I sort of named them myself – and they're unique in that they take these wishes, these desires, these great and overpowering _wants_ , and make them manifest."

Grace was shaking her head. "That's impossible."

"Yeah, but what if it wasn't? Imagine these tiny little things, living their lives following little patches of distress and joy, dotting the entire planet and very much enjoying the rise of humans as a species – imagine them finding an incredible food source and clustering up around it, and combining their normally minute abilities into a very powerful weapon. Imagine that they could corral their feeding source, like we do with cattle, and feed on them indefinitely."

"So you think…? They're corralling us?"

"Maybe not on purpose. It might be purely physiological. Or maybe whoever their drawn to has a desire so strong that it's pulling them in like moths to a flame. They simply can't resist, and that dome out there is them trying to keep their distance."

"Doctor… did you hit your head while you were outside?"

He waved her off, looking to Henry instead. "Can you think of anyone who might have a desire like that? I saw some manifesting while I was outside. Er, a big horse running about."

"Aside from the one that ran into the mist, we had to put a mare down last week. Her owners were torn up about it." Henry wrapped his arms more tightly around his daughter.

"And there was a dog, on almost every street. Same dog."

"Lovely," Polly squeaked.

"Her dog," Grace supplied. "She lost her dog."

"Okay. And there was a woman."

Grace looked at Henry. "Do you think…?"

Henry looked at the floor. "My wife was killed years ago, but-"

"That would be enough. It's taking your desires and making them manifest. But something much stronger is fueling the rest of this. We need to find out who is in extreme distress in this town."

"Let me go and ask the others if they know anything." Henry stood, hefting his daughter into his arms.

The Doctor lingered in his seat, wondering something for himself.

Grace watched him with that eerie recognition, like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"What is it?"

He shook it off, glancing at the back door. "I want a lot of things. I just hope it doesn't latch onto them."

"Yeah, me too."

The Doctor watched the door, his curiosity budding out of control. "But I wonder…" He got up, cracking it and staring out at the thickening mist. Grace followed him into the street. "It wouldn't be real, I know… but I could just… look at it. See my memory come to life. It's been so long."

"So long since what?"

He hadn't told her yet, and he wasn't sure if he could. Sometimes when he looked into her eyes he saw the leaves of Gallifrey, the leaves of the odd little tree that lived on his favorite hill, and his hearts were lifted straight out of his chest. His longing to go home again was the most severe he had at the moment – it transcended everything. It sometimes made him feel lost and empty inside, like a thousand years of wisdom would not be enough to guide his actions.

But no matter where he walked, he saw the desires of the townspeople coming to life, and never his own. Slowly, gradually, he gave up hope of seeing his home again.

Grace took his hand in the town center. "What were you looking for?"

"Something I lost… that I'll never get back." He looked at her, and, briefly, got a glimpse of those leaves in her eyes. It seemed to be the last fragment he would ever see, and little as it was, it made him feel better. "I never told you, but my home… my people… they're gone."

Grace nodded, interlacing their fingers. She leaned her head on his shoulder. "So are mine."

She was right. Her whole life had been wiped out. Her family, her friends, her experiences – all of it had been reset, and she had a new one, but it would never be the same. She was more like him than he had imagined. He also realized that he had helped it along. He had caused her to be in this state – she had said it herself. He was the one who changed the timeline in the first place. Her pain was because of him. It was just another red letter on his record.

And again she picked up on what he was feeling, and tilted her head, like when she had listened to the whispers of the TARDIS. She frowned. "Why are you guilty?"

 _Because I destroy everything I touch._

He stammered. "I'm not."

"Okay." She let off an unspoken 'you don't have to tell me,' and smiled at him.

He shook away his surprise, determined to get to the bottom of all of her mysteries one day. "We should get inside. I want to talk to the group again."

"Last time they threw you out."

The Doctor put his free hand to her chin, tilting her face toward him to look at the damage to her lip and eye. "I wish you would tell me who did that."

"To be fair, I started it." She flashed a smile. "Besides, we have a job to do."

"We do." Again, compulsively, he kissed her forehead, cherishing this quiet moment between them. She was a bit wild, and sort of unpredictable, and still very strange, but she was also precious, and strong, and fierce. And he found himself trusting her despite her secrets.

What was life without a little mystery?


	26. The Rumbling

**Chapter 26.**

 **The Rumbling.**

At the risk of being thrown out again, the Doctor took the stage. He saw all the desperation and fear these people had experienced in the beginning amplified by their hunger, their exhaustion, and their confusion. It had been too long for any of them to see a war, and they lived in a place that had been silent for almost a century, so this kind of captivity was unknown to them – to most of them, at least. In the back, wearing their rags and looking up for once, the line of slaves was much less reactive. Captivity was their reality every day. The Doctor had to wonder, briefly, if any of the townspeople would see the symmetry in that.

He doubted it.

He raised his voice above the murmur. "I know you're all afraid, but I need to pose a question to the group. Has anyone died recently?"

The people glanced at each other in silence, but it was not their words he needed. He surveyed their faces, seeing if anyone reacted to his words. He was looking for a grief so strong that it could make the wish-makers swarm, and he wasn't finding it. His eyes poured last over the group at the back, dismissing one set of placid brown eyes at a time, until he came to the littlest of them.

Henry had lost his wife. Polly had lost her mother. No grief was more profound than theirs, so they _had_ to be the source. What else was there?

"Uh, carry on." He jumped from the stage and ran down the aisle. Grace was sitting with Polly, saying something sweet to her, and the Doctor cut her off. "I need to talk to her. Henry?"

Henry frowned. "Why?"

"She lost her mum." The Doctor scooped the little girl up. "I just need a moment alone with her."

When he got approval from Henry, he took the girl to the little storage room and set her in a parlor chair, examining her face. She looked sad – she looked monumentally sad – but was that really enough to spark something like this?

"Polly, I heard you lost your mummy."

The little girl shrugged.

"Do you miss her?"

Her eyes showed nothing. "I don't remember."

"You don't remember her?" But how could that be? Polly was without a doubt the saddest person in that room. If the wish-makers were looking for powerful emotions, she was the one to latch onto. Mentions of her mother barely stirred her.

Polly shook her head, and shrugged away, looking at the floor.

Grace came into the room, crouching by the little girl. "Was it her mom?"

"No. It was something else." The Doctor scratched his head. "Maybe some _one_ else."

"What about your dog?" Grace stroked her hand over the girl's hair, nodding to her. "You told me you lost your dog. What was her name?"

Polly smiled, and then it became a deep frown. "Lovely."

"And you miss her, right?"

"Yeah." Her lip trembled. "I miss her."

The Doctor let his hand drop off his head. Of course. What could be more powerful than a child missing her precious pet? How could he be so stupid?

Henry came in. "What happened? Polly?"

His head was cluttered. "It was the dog. It was your dog, Lovely. What happened to her?"

Grace was the one to answer. "John shot her. She's dead."

The Doctor pulled his companion aside, speaking to her in a whisper. "She wants her dog back more than anything in the world, and she's too little to understand that it's impossible. That's beyond the wish-makers' power. Nothing can do that – nothing can defy death like that. But Polly can't understand that. She's just a little girl. No, no. The swarm won't stop. It won't stop, and it'll consume everything."

Henry managed to listen in. He put his hands on Polly's knees and pleaded with her. "We'll get you a new puppy. I'm sure we can find one."

Polly broke into a sob. "No! I want Lovely!"

"It won't work." The Doctor watched the little girl suffer, knowing that only time could heal a wound like that. Right now, in the midst of this swarm, their time was too short. "Death is an abstract concept to children. We have to find another way to fix this."

Grace grabbed his arm, "Why can't they bring the dog back?"

"Because it died. It's gone. I don't know exactly what the limits of their abilities are, but that's beyond it. It's beyond everything. It should never happen."

Grace seemed to be feeling the agony radiating from the child. As Polly screamed at her father, declaring over and over that she wanted Lovely back, tears formed in Grace's eyes. It would have seemed like empathy, but the Doctor got a different impression from it. She was _feeling_ it. He put his arm over her shoulder and hugged her.

He might have been right about her species after all. She was somewhat like the wish-makers, an emotional being very sensitive to the world around her, to the creatures who suffered.

Grace looked up at him, teary-eyed, and whispered, "It's not fair. All she had was a dog, and he took it away."

"I know. I know."

And suddenly, to add a sense of dread to this moment, as if it lacked the depth of fear, the rumbling came again, sharper and louder this time. It made the ground heave so severely that the Doctor almost hit the wall. He held Grace up, and helped Henry up, and the four of them went back into the main hall. Up above, the chandelier was shaking. People were murmuring, fearful, and holding their loved ones. The candles were flickering.

In their panic, someone went for the door. It burst open and the floodgates fell away. The crowd streamed outside.

"No! Stop!" The Doctor could not get a hand on anyone. They slipped out, screaming, into the road, where the mist had become even thicker, so thick the end of the crowd could no longer be seen. The rumbling shook them all to their knees.

He could identify the sound now.

It was the sound of a gunshot. It was a memory. It was the moment the girl had lost her dog, played out over and over again, amplified by her fear.

He stopped on the stoop, looking out at them all, and Grace clung to his arm. Henry held his daughter tight, shouting at the others to get back inside. She was still crying. It turned into screaming as her fear grew. Up above, the barrier shifted into storm clouds, and it began to rain. The sound of water striking the street echoed like a dream.

"What's happening?" Grace shouted. Her voice was right in his ear, but it sounded far away.

"It's her fear! The wish-makers are reacting to what she's feeling!"

Someone at the base of the steps heard them and whipped around. " _What_? The girl is doing it?"

"No, that's not what I said!"

The man who heard them began spreading those words around, and the eyes of the group came to the four people standing on the stoop. It was too loud to hear most of what they were saying, but their expressions were not promising.

The first man charged up, and Grace stepped up and pushed him right back down.

"Stay away from her!"

He tripped and hit the street hard, dazed. Grace stood her ground, little, but completely prepared to tackle anyone who came near that girl. The Doctor was proud of her.

No one else came up, but it was not because of her display of aggression.

The rumbling came, and with it, the mist changed. Ghostly barking came from all around. Behind them, the town hall doors slammed shut. In every direction, at every feasible escape point, the mist ruffled up into hundreds of vicious dogs.

And they charged.


	27. The Wish

**Chapter 27.**

 **The Wish.**

It was not fair. Even as she stood there, under the arm of the Doctor, perhaps watching the thing that would kill her race across the pavement, she could only think of how unfair it was. When he offered to take her here, it seemed like the best thing that had ever happened to her – aside from meeting him in the first place. If she could just get impossibly far away from her own quiet home, she might feel some semblance of peace. But something like this had to happen.

It was not just unfair for her, but for the little girl she had met. Polly. What did she have in life? She had a smart, loving father. She had a brother somewhere. But her mother was dead. She was literally the property of someone else. Her life meant so little to the people at the bottom of those steps that they probably would have offered her up to the dogs to save their own skins. What kind of life was that? Seven years and that was what she got out of it?

Grace put her hand on Polly's arm, taking precious seconds out of their last moments. "Forget what the Doctor said. Nothing really dies, Polly. Nothing ever really dies." She found the girl's hands, and looked into her flabbergasted, terrified eyes. "I want you to wish with me. Wish really hard. Wish that Lovely was here with us. Wish that she was okay."

Polly pressed her eyes shut and mumbled to herself, spelling out her wish and thinking as hard as she could about it. Grace did the same, trying to picture the dog for herself.

And then suddenly she could see it.

She could see the dog. She could hear the blast of the gun, see the dog crumple under it, hear Polly screaming hoarsely as she witnessed her best friend get taken away.

She had little time to wonder. Her chest tightened. She felt cold inside. Her eyes suddenly refused to open. She fixated on the dog, and let her soul wrap around its short life.

She saw another image of it, a better memory. The dog was running through a wheat field.

The cold struck her harder, like it was sapping away at her life.

Grace staggered away. Her eyes popped open. She almost tripped down the steps, but the Doctor caught her. The barking stopped. The attacking dogs dissipated. The people stopped screaming. From the depths of the mist, the Shepherd came out in full color, darting straight through the crowd and up to the stoop.

Polly twisted out of her father's arms and wrapped the dog in a hug. Lovely danced around, whimpering, and snuggled her owner.

The Doctor drew in a gasp. "What…?"

She was alive.

Grace crouched and ran her hands over the dog's pelt. She was alive. She was real. She was soft to the touch, and her eyes were sparkling, and the cold spot in Grace's chest was replaced with a burning heat. She smiled. Polly giggled. Her father looked on in shock. The rain stopped and the sky lightened, and the mist faded all around.

The barriers were gone.

"It's a miracle," Grace murmured.

Henry nodded. "Thank God."

The Doctor grabbed her arm suddenly, yanking her upright and directing her down the steps, out of earshot of the celebrating townspeople. "How did that happen? Did you do something?"

Grace jerked her arm away from him, surprised by his aggression. "What? How could I?"

"Grace, if you did something, you need to tell me right now. That dog was dead."

"I know. And the wish-makers brought it back. You said it yourself."

"No. I said they could never do that. I said that could never happen!"

"Stop yelling at me! I didn't do it."

She was surprised, and enlightened, by the accusation. _Had_ she done it? He kept insisting she was an alien, but was she that sort of alien? Was it even possible? She had felt a cold flash inside, and seen memories of the dog. None of that seemed possible, either. But he looked so upset by it, so disturbed, so genuinely disgusted, that she would never admit to the possibility.

After a few moments he let the tension fade, and he looked at the girl and her dog. "This is never meant to happen. When things die… It happens for a reason."

"It happened because John shot her. And he shot Henry's wife, too. Was that for a _reason_?" Grace tried to keep the edge out of her voice, because he was her ride home, after all, but she couldn't help her anger. "I think it was because of a monster."

The Doctor was very serious. "No, not a monster. It was a person."

Grace diffused their argument by wrapping her arms around him. She squeezed until he relented and hugged her back. "We got a happy ending. Let's not dig into it."

He had one eyebrow raised defensively when she pulled away. "I suppose. But-"

"No buts. Mostly everybody lived. Polly got her dog back. Drop it."

He set his jaw stubbornly. "Grace-"

Grace slapped her hand over his mouth. "I told Henry we would take him somewhere else to live. Don't you want to yell at me about that, instead?"

He seemed reluctant, and then he took the bait. "I know you want to help him, but-"

"Think of what kind of life he could have! He's so smart! And Polly is so strong!"

"Yes. Think of the life they could have." The Doctor was grim. "Henry would probably cause a lot of waves. So would Polly. They could change the course of human history, just the two of them. I know how much it burns to know that we get to leave, and they have to stay, but it has to be that way. I wish it were different."

He was resolved, not willing to budge on this issue, and he had dropped the undead dog, so Grace made herself let it go. She wanted to help Henry achieve those things he dreamed of so badly that she ached inside, but she was also afraid that if she pushed too hard, the Doctor would realize she was more trouble than she was worth. She never wanted to go back home.

So she looked at Henry, and at the little girl and her dog, and let herself feel the warmth of this moment. Maybe they would have good lives anyway. Maybe it didn't have to be tragic.

"We should go, before they turn on us again." The Doctor put his arm over her shoulder, turning her toward the road they had come in on. The TARDIS was still sitting in the middle of that field. "Your gene was probably a random mutation."

"Yeah, and I could never cite this as a source, anyway."

He smiled, waving his hand out like he was announcing a title. "My travels in the past, and no, I'm not completely bonkers!"

"It'll be a hit!" She looked back again, finding Henry watching them leave. "You go. I want to say goodbye. I'll be right back."

The Doctor groaned. "Behave yourself."

"I don't know. I'm feeling very rebellious today."


	28. Tattered Memoir

**Chapter 28.**

 **Tattered Memoir.**

Since the loss of his species, his mind often went back to thoughts about life and death. He knew how hard it was to understand – how much it burned to lose people, having the power of time at his disposal. He knew how tempting it was to find them again, to make it turn out the way he thought it should. But he also knew it was wrong. He felt that wrongness like a sickness inside today, because he had seen the impossible happen. He had to ask himself if what he had witnessed could really be true. He had to pose the hard questions, and wonder, again, if Grace was dangerous. If she really had something to do with this, the answer was a definitive yes, because of the very short list of beings he knew to have abilities like that, all of them could also do the opposite. With the gift of life, it seemed, always came the plague of death.

His mind was caught up on these things when Grace came back into the TARDIS. She had chosen to stay a few nights, camping out in the console room because he had not offered her a room of her own yet. She went out during the day and explored the forest, or the town, and played with Polly and the newly resurrected Lovely. She struck up quite the flirtation with Henry. She found out what she wanted to know about the Cyclic Gene – it _was_ just a mutation, in the patriarch of the Smith family. He was 96 and mostly healthy.

She had been avoiding the Doctor, or he had been avoiding her – he was never certain which – for the last few days. She must have sensed the questions he had for her, and she was staying away from him. He wished he didn't have to ask them.

"What happened with the dog, Grace?"

She leaned against the console, on the opposite side as him. "You were there."

"You put your hands on Polly, and you asked her to wish for her dog back. Why?"

"I thought we were all going to die. I just did it."

"No, no. You said you thought nothing really died. What did you mean?"

She groaned, flopping back into one of the seats near the railing. "I don't know. I was just trying to make her feel better. She was crying."

"There were dogs coming for us. Everyone was crying."

"Are you mad at me for trying to make her feel better?"

"I'm not mad at you." He came around, leaning against the console where she had been, keeping a careful eye on her expressions. "But I need to know exactly what happened."

"It was a miracle, Doctor."

"No, it wasn't."

"You're so negative! Here I was, thinking you were maybe the liveliest person I'd ever met, and you're proving me wrong. What is so wrong with what happened?" Grace crossed her arms, giving him a look of intimate disapproval. "Why can't you just accept something good and move on?"

He hated that look. He was not the negative type. "I want it to be a happy ending, I really do – you have no idea how badly I want that – but I can feel something off about it. Things just don't come back from the dead like that."

"You're a time traveler. You can see someone die, and then go back and watch them get born."

"That's different."

Grace seemed to be about to yell at him, but she puffed out a breath instead. "I don't know what happened, Doctor. I don't know. I'd like to think it was love. That little girl wanted her dog back so bad that she attracted those things. She loved her dog so much that she challenged the laws of nature, and she won. Lovely is alive, and Polly is happy. That's what I see. That's where I stop."

"I can't afford to stop there." There were plenty more questions to be answered, but he could see she would not go any further. He changed pace. "While you were out today, I took a look at the future. Do you want to know what I found?"

It must have been his tone. Grace frowned. "What?"

She was frustrating him by not admitting to whatever she had done with the dog, so he lashed back. "Weeks after this moment, Henry was killed for 'inciting panic.'"

Grace went straight for the door. The Doctor stopped her.

"Listen to me. That was already going to happen. And trust me, if that was all I had to tell you, I would go out there myself and bring him along with us. I would save him, Grace. I want you to know that." He backed her up to the seat, placing his hands on her shoulders, looking squarely into those stubborn eyes. "But something else happened. Something… just sit down."

Grace had tears in her eyes. "They're gonna kill him."

"I know. But Polly survives."

Grace sat down again, giving a little whimper. "Without her dad."

"Yeah, without her dad. But she's a strong girl. I found some new entries from this era, leading right into the next one, about that little girl out there. When her father was killed, she escaped. She ran away, and survived out on her own, walking hundreds of miles with her dog by her side. She became a force, Grace. She was an abolitionist leader and she was free. She fought for the rights of freed slaves for the rest of her life. She fought against oppression, and published books about her life, and inspired her people with her courage."

Grace's eyes lit up. She hopped out of the seat and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

But there was more.

"They called her Bloody Polly, Grace. She was ruthless. She killed over thirty people, slave owners, throughout the South before the war." The Doctor waited, and surely enough, Grace drew away. She retreated to her seat, looking away from him. "I saw you two talking. I heard some choice words. Do you know why she killed those people?"

Grace swallowed, scraping a piece of hair back with one hand. "I… I told her the truth."

Oh, no. "And what truth was that?"

She looked at him, her eyes simmering. "Some people don't deserve to live."

No. She couldn't be this person. He wouldn't accept it.

"That's not your decision to make."

"It is, and it was Polly's too. I'm proud of her!"

She _was_ that person. And she was defending it. "You're wrong. We don't get the power over life and death. We don't decide who deserves to live, and who should die."

"You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand!" Grace snapped.

"I understand it better than anyone. I've been alive a lot longer than you. I've had to make those decisions, Grace. It's never simple. It's never so black and white."

Grace's eyes took on an unsettling darkness. "Have you ever been beaten?"

He lost his fire. "No."

"Have you ever been raped, Doctor?"

"No."

"Do you think someone that does that should be allowed to live? Is that what you think?" She was talking about something personal. Her voice trembled. "If you think for one second scum like that deserves to live… You're not who I thought you were."

The Doctor had nothing to say. He would have apologized, if he could get the lump out of his throat. He wished he was a vengeful man, because the look on her face triggered every protective desire in his body.

Grace was stronger than him. She didn't cry. She squared her jaw and looked away, her voice even and empty. "Take me home, please."

No. He never wanted to take her home again. Even after hearing her dark opinion about life and death, even after realizing that what she believed went against his very nature, he could not take her home. Doing that would destroy him.

He walked around the console, pushing levers and spinning the dial aimlessly, trying to come up with an apology, but the words were very hard to find.

When he got back around to her, she was watching him. It just came out.

"Forgive me."

And somehow, she smiled. "That was anticlimactic."

"I spend a lot of time apologizing." He sat beside her, taking a deep breath to settle himself. "I end up in a lot of situations where I see people die. I try everything to save them and they die anyway. I lose anyway. I guess sometimes I forget that I don't know everything."

Grace looped her arm into his and leaned on his shoulder, saying nothing.

"And I do wish people like him didn't exist, but that's not my choice, or your choice. As a traveler, as an observer, I wish I could help more people and make those decisions. Impossible decisions. But I can't, and regardless of what you might think of those people, if you travel with me, you can't decide they should die, either. Our choices define us, Grace. I choose to be merciful."

She tilted her head to stare at him, her eyes a little clearer. "You're not taking me home, are you?"

"Honestly, I never want to have to take you home again. I want you to stay with me. Travel with me. Rose would love to have you."

"Would she?"

"Rose is a lot like me in that department. People person."

"From what I've seen so far, you suck with people."

He smiled, glad her humor had returned. "I suppose I should work on changing that opinion."

Grace was quiet for a moment, content to be close, and then she released his arm. "I wanted to… I thought I could try something, if it was okay with you."

He wondered if he should be worried, but she looked cautiously excited. "What?"

"When you look at me… I know you see something. And you don't have to tell me. That's okay. But I can feel how… how much it hurts you. You were looking for something in the mist. I think… maybe I might be able to help you see it. When I touched Polly, I could see her dog. I could just feel it before, but suddenly it was there. If I… tried that on you..."

The Doctor was immediately weary, and excited. "I don't think you should."

Grace stood up suddenly, taking a stance in front of him and effectively boxing him into his seat. She put her hands on his cheeks, running both thumbs under his eyes in an unexpected tender gesture. It stunted his reaction. It took him completely off guard.

She stared into his eyes.

He thought to protest.

But it happened very quickly.

He was home again, lying in the grass, looking up through those strange seafoam green leaves. He could look all around at the beautiful buildings, the other children making their way between lessons, and his heart ached to join them. The Doctor heard his native language spoken for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, and something that would have been so simple in his youth, so simple as a few words in greeting, made his heart soar.

And then there was the ancient air. And the howling birds. And the grass beneath his hands. And the sky that he had missed. And the soaring wind on his skin.

It was really there for a moment, a snapshot of the world he had left behind, and it took his breath away. There were no words to describe how he felt. It brought fresh tears to his eyes.

Grace was in his head, but he didn't shy away from it. She was the opposite of everything the presence had been. She touched his mind with the delicacy of a satin sheet. Her consciousness swept through him like a warm breeze, flipping through his memories, through his life, like a treasured, tattered memoir.

When the memory ended, and she was left there with her hands on his face, and a tear on her cheek, he was driven to action. He stood and hugged her.

The Doctor whispered. "Thank you. I never thought… Thank you."

Grace sniffled over his shoulder. "It hurts so much."

"I know it does." He rubbed her back, aware that he was causing this pain. His emotions were overwhelming. He tried to reign them in, for her sake.

"How do you…? How can you even…?" She drew back again, scanning his face with glassy eyes, trying to understand. "How do you even smile when you feel like this?"

"Because of a few good friends."

He caught a tear going down her cheek. He was finally catching his breath. He wondered, distantly, what else she might have seen in his head, but the concern was short-lived. She had abilities he didn't fully understand yet, and she was certainly powerful, and the pain of her past drove her to some dark conclusions about the value of life, but she was also kind, and perceptive, and she had literally reached into him and all that she pulled out amounted to a memory. Of all the valuable things inside of him, it seemed all she wanted was his happiness.

The Doctor kept a close eye on her while he got the TARDIS going. It was a lot easier for him to come down from an emotional peak than her – his theory about her species being emotionally-based was proven without a doubt. And he had to wonder what else she could do. Time Lords were capable of mild telepathy. It all came down to interpreting electrical signals in the brain, and that was simple for someone with a brain like him. But when he tried to think of a species that looked human, and preferred silence, and was telepathic at short distances, it was a short list.

She was still a mystery. She was an incomplete puzzle.

"Can we go and see Rose now?" Grace shifted to lie across the console floor. She seemed to have recovered from experiencing his pain, and was now making life purposefully difficult for him.

He stepped over her to spin the dial. "If you want."

"I do. I think we should all go out for dinner."

"I know at least seven great antigravity restaurants."

Grace nodded, catching his leg as he passed. "I don't know what that is, but I want to go."


	29. Grumpy Garden Gnome

**Chapter 29.**

 **Grumpy Garden Gnome.**

It was almost noon on a Sunday when the Doctor returned. The TARDIS materialized in the living room, between the chairs and the telly, producing an audible gasp from the kitchen. Her mum was not a fan of the Doctor landing inside the house. Rose got a smile stuck on her face, though. Seeing that blue box pop up always made her day better.

She could already hear the Doctor singing inside. It was a far cry from how upset he had been when he left her in the alley days ago.

He burst out the doors as she was standing up, wrapping her in a tight hug. If there was one thing in the whole universe that always made her feel better, it was a hug from the Doctor. It soothed all the worrying she had done about him while he was gone. He was smiling, and he had his hair all spiked up, and he laughed into her shoulder.

She managed to get out a high-pitched, "Hi."

He released her, grinning, his expression the perfect display of joy. "Hi. Did you miss me?"

Rose snorted. She always missed him. She liked spending time with her mum, but the Doctor was a different story. "You have _no idea_. Mum's got a new yoga thing and it's been going on all weekend. It's a miracle I've survived this long."

Jackie came in and gave the Doctor a sort of smile. Since the Doctor came into her life, their relationship had been a challenge. She was not enthralled with him like Rose, but she didn't hate him. It was complicated. "No appreciation for the fine arts, this one." She motioned to Rose, and then eyed the TARDIS, her smile turning into a scowl. "Is that gonna mess up the carpet? It's expensive, you know. I've had it up to here with you ruining my house."

Rose ignored her mother. "Are we off, then?"

The Doctor looked uncertain.

"What is it?"

He scratched the back of his head and cleared his throat, looking guilty. "Well… you know when you told me you wouldn't mind if Grace came along…?"

He stepped aside, and revealed the girl standing in the TARDIS doorway. Grace. She was stocky, she looked grumpy, and her hair made it seem like she had been electrocuted. One of her eyes was bruised and her lip was split. She looked like a mix between a punk rocker and an angry garden gnome, and Rose could not see what the Doctor was so caught up on.

He was right about the eyes, though. She couldn't be human.

Rose glared at the Doctor for lack of a warning, and then focused on the girl, who seemed rather innocuous despite her rough appearance. "Uh, hi."

"Hi." Grace stepped out, surveying Rose as much as Rose was surveying her. "Rose, right?"

"Right. You must be Grace."

"Yup." She popped her lips and took a look around. "Is this…? What year is this?"

It was going great so far. Grace seemed blown away by what she was seeing in the simple living room. She was not nearly as rude as her appearance suggested. But the Doctor was looking at her, watching her, in a way that made Rose wonder what the two of them had been up to.

Jackie walked up behind Rose, incapable of staying out of the conversation for more than a few moments. "Is she an alien? She better not mess up the carpet, either."

Rose waved her off. "Enough with the carpet, Mum." She looked between the Doctor and Grace, wondering what transfixed him in this grumpy garden gnome of a girl. She was definitely going to interrogate him when she got him alone. "It's 2006."

Grace stopped at the couch, giving it a poke. "Looks a lot like home."

The Doctor cut in, incapable of keeping his cleverness to himself for more than a few moments. "In the 2500s, humans wanted to look back at the days before the war, and this was the last real semblance of peace they had. It was cozy. Homey. Call it wishful decorating." He stepped closer to Rose, murmuring under his breath, "I should have warned you, I know, and I'm sorry, but there were extenuating circumstances."

Rose leaned in, too, lowering her voice to match his. "What is she doing?"

He narrated the girl like she was the star in a nature documentary, provoking a smile from Rose. "Right now, if you look very closely, you may see the exact moment when she catches the scent of sugar-based foods. Right there, you see it? Now she's stalking her prey, moving in for the kill, right through into the kitchen. Fascinating, isn't it?"

"What kind of alien is she?" Rose asked.

"Apparently one that likes to gorge on literally anything that may be remotely unhealthy." He smiled, and grew more serious. "I'm not sure yet. I'm working on it." He leaned around the TARDIS, becoming distracted by what was on the TV. "Is that _aquatic yoga_?"

Jackie joined their whispering circle. "He does go for the young ones, doesn't he?"

"I do not!" The Doctor straightened. "Rose said I could bring her."

"You bring another one of your girls into _my_ house? You should be ashamed!"

"Mum, I did tell him that. It's fine." She tried to get a view of the girl in the kitchen. She could hear wrappers crinkling. "What happened to her face?"

"She picked a fight with a 5'11 mustachioed mayor in 1851 North Carolina."

Rose frowned at him. " _What_?"

"It's a long story."

"You went without me?"

He winced. "It was meant to be a short thing – pop in, pop out." He watched her for a moment, and then he put his hand on her arm. "It went a little south, anyway. You're still my best mate."

Rose smiled. She liked to hear him say that.

He lowered his voice further, breathing in her ear. "We can talk about it later."

Jackie couldn't stand to be left out. "It's 'cause you got a crush, ain't it?"

Rose immediately regretted sharing her suspicions with her mother. She had speculated that the Doctor was infatuated with the girl because of their adventure together in the alternate timeline – an adventure Rose had not been a part of. She was, admittedly, a little bitter about it, but she didn't want her mother teasing the Doctor.

His voice got high. "I do _not_!"

"Look at you blushing!" Jackie countered. "You throw my Rose out to the side like last week's trash and go for someone else, just like that?"

"God, Mum, stop."

He seemed to have a very serious comeback assembled, but he held up his hand instead. He frowned, bobbing his eyebrows. "Anybody hear that?"

Rose felt a tingle of adrenaline. "What?"

"Exactly. Nothing. No munching. No wrappers."

The Doctor broke away from them and rushed into the kitchen. Rose followed. He checked the cabinets and even looked in the fridge, groaning. It would have been comical – looking in the fridge for someone who had vanished – if he didn't look so worried about it.

He blew past Rose, hovering in the door. His face grew serious for a moment.

"I would never throw you out, by the way."

Rose nodded, urging him on. "I know. I know that."

They ran downstairs. Rose had an instinct to follow the Doctor whenever he suddenly started running. It was a survival thing. But she wondered where his panic came from – Grace was just a girl. What did he think she could get into in a few seconds?

She had not gotten far. The Doctor stopped running as soon as he was out the door, and Rose crashed into him. Grace was sitting in the wet alley, petting a ratty little dog.

The Doctor stormed toward her. "That dog better not have been dead when you found it."

The dog ran off, and Grace glared at the Doctor. "You scared him!"

"I think that's the McAllister rat," Rose pointed out. "He'll be back. And, in the meantime, does anyone wanna tell me what you mean by that? It better not have been _dead_?"

"Long story." The Doctor grimaced at her, probably realizing she was tired of hearing that excuse. He held out a hand to Grace. "The ground is wet. Come on."

Grace looked at his hand, but didn't take it. She laid back, soaking the backs of her clothes. Her eyes rolled shut. "It never rains at my house. They block it out. It's dangerous. It eats right through your skin. They filter it before they let people near it."

The Doctor crossed his arms, nodding to Rose. "Easily entertained. Slightly impulsive." While he spoke, Grace flipped onto her stomach and rolled into the puddle, pretending to swim. "Okay, very impulsive. Time to get up, now."

Grace got out of the puddle, but ignored his hand, twisting around a light pole instead. She looked at Rose with those imposing eyes, giving her a strange sense of pressure.

"Do you have a dog?"

"No."

"We should get a dog." She pointed at the Doctor. " _You_ should get a dog."

"I think a dog might listen better than you. Let's go inside."

"Are there any wars going on?" Grace smiled at the Doctor, but turned to look at Rose. "Is there an ocean nearby? I want to see it. How do you all communicate? Your TV was small."

"Um, yeah, a few. We use phones."

Grace had a lot of questions. Her list went on as she spun around on the sidewalk. She looked at the sky like she had never seen clouds before.

Rose cut in when she got the chance. "I have an idea. We could go to a museum, let you have a look around. If you want history, you'll find it there. Loads of it."

The Doctor smiled. "I love museums!"

Rose could not help a thought. _Of course you do_.

He walked over and carefully detached Grace from the pole, motioning to the side door they had come out of. "Where would you like to go? The Louvre? The MET? The Smithsonian?"

Grace began saying, "I like the sound of-"

And Rose said, "What about the-?"

But the Doctor cut them both off. He stopped in the middle of the street and gasped, his grin becoming impossible. "I know just the place! Trust me, you'll both love it."

"He said that about the library," Grace said to Rose.

"What library?"

"Big one. Lots of books."

"She complained from the front door to the back door." The Doctor opened the door for them. "But this is different. This is a world of history. This is the greatest collection of humanity that was ever… well, collected."


	30. The Big DME

**Chapter 30.**

 **The Big DME.**

Rose had never seen anything like it. She had been traveling with the Doctor for a while now, and they had never landed in a place like this. He favored the living history, the events as they were happening, all shrouded and danger and wild to behold. But this was obviously a place for tourism. Right out of the TARDIS she pegged ten different alien species in a crowd of hundreds strolling a beautiful, expansive lawn. And beyond them, with architecture like the coliseum of Rome and big neon letters flashing up and down its columns, was the museum. It was spectacular.

"What in the world…?" Grace came out beside her, equally grounded by the sight. She looked a little disoriented by all the activity.

The Doctor came out last, smiling at their reaction. He put an arm over both of their shoulders and beamed at the building. "Ladies, welcome to the Definitive Museum of Earth History, Human Development, and Carbon-Life Physiology, otherwise known as the DME – the Definitive Museum of Earth. We are about a billion-billion miles from Earth's solar system, on UOHP-9. Universal Organization of Histories and Preservation, location 9, that is."

Rose shook herself. "What year is it? Is the Earth still…?"

"Oh, no. Earth has long-since expired. No longer sustains life. It's still out there, of course, and the sun is being held back until the funds run dry – remember that?"

Rose nodded. It was their first date.

"You see, there is a very peculiar race – I say race, but there are really only five of them, hive-mind. Love those. They're called the Curators and they spend their lives gathering information about the universe. They compile it and create museums out of it in order to share it with the masses. This building is dedicated to Earth, and there are others, dedicated to other life-bearing planets, all over the place. Shall we go in?"

The three of them walked on, with the Doctor slightly in the lead. He strode confidently across the lawn, nodding and smiling at aliens as they passed. Rose kept step with Grace, concerned by her expression. She had wide eyes, and suddenly seemed younger than before.

"It's alright." Rose nodded. "Not every trip turns out crazy."

Grace smiled, shrugging. "That's not… It's just… Can you believe all this? I mean, I barely believed it when we went to the past, and that was so simple, but _this_? There are spaceships landing over there. There are aliens _everywhere_."

"You'll get used to it, I promise."

Beyond the front steps, they came into a magnificent lobby. It was shaped like the globe, with projections that looked like documentary clips playing on all the walls. The Doctor pointed proudly to a metal pin on his lapel and the alien behind the window waved them on.

"Behold, my friends, the greatest sum of Earth knowledge in the universe." He did a little spin, and then pointed at Grace seriously. "Do _not_ wander off."

She frowned. "What fun is that?"

"I mean it."

Grace glanced at Rose. "Does he sound like he means it?"

Rose liked her mischievous tone. "I don't know. Sounds like he might not mean it."

"I do mean it." He moved his threatening finger between them. "I was afraid of this."

"It's not wandering off if we use the buddy system. You've been here before, but this is our first time, so I call Rose." Grace grabbed Rose by the hand and dragged her away.

XxX

The DME was absolutely massive.

It hosted dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of stunning exhibits. Rose found herself walking through tunnels and into rooms, and upstairs, and down into caves, as the museum took them on a complete tour of the history of her home. It was much more involved than she would have imagined. She got lost in it very early, and time passed her by as she was drawn to one babbling scientist, and then another. Gigantic hologram dinosaurs and bloody recreations of the earliest trials and tribulations of mankind were endlessly entertaining.

Grace turned out to be a very strange girl, but also very likeable. She harassed every statue they went by, trying to ride one of the animatronic raptors and then attempting to swing from one of the vines in a display about the world's biomes. Rose thought she might get the two of them arrested, but then she started laughing, and she couldn't stop. Grace was a handful. She was a toddler and a grown up, all wrapped into one – a lot like the Doctor. No wonder he liked her.

She kept up a constant dialogue, polling Rose on everything they saw as if expecting Rose to have been there for every major event in Earth history. She asked strangers what they thought, and entertained children with her antics, and occasionally took the reins and started educating the crowd on the science behind what they were seeing.

Rose imagined she had grown up rather sheltered, without the nudges to grow up, but with a mind like a steel trap. She was absorbing information.

When they came to the 1800s, and Rose felt sore all over from being tugged and dragged by Grace for several hours, her companion finally slowed down. Grace walked along a wall of grainy photographs, running her finger over the faces of black slaves in North America. She lingered, and the enthusiasm drained out of her, and she became somber and thoughtful.

Rose tried to pick a familiar face out of the photos, but there were dozens of faces, and they were all filled with the same rough determination. Grace was fixating on one in particular – a woman scowling near the center of the group, her face nearly bisected by a deep black scar, her eyes beady and angry. Below, in the caption, she was identified as Bloody Polly.

"Do you know her?"

Grace swallowed. "I met her, yeah. She was just a little girl."

Rose read over the caption. "This is an image of the Bloody Brigade, an abolitionist organization led by the infamous Bloody Polly. On their march through the Virginian countryside on April 3, 1879, the pictured renegade slaves temporarily overthrew the town of Westfield, killing over a dozen former slave owners in what was believed to be the bloodiest act of retribution after the American Civil War…" Rose looked again at the faces, and then at Grace. "You _knew_ her?"

"She was just a little girl," Grace repeated. She fixated on the picture. "The Doctor said… but I never saw her like this. What happened to her face?"

"It looks like someone cut her."

"No, I mean…" Grace put her hand on the image. " _Look_. Look how angry she is. Look at that… _rage_. When I knew her she was just… scared. Helpless. I wish she could have been happy."

Rose put her hand on Grace's shoulder, and pulled her away from the pictures. "Come on. Lots more to see."

She urged her now saddened companion through the exhibits, and glanced back every now and then to keep track of the Doctor. He had been trailing them through the museum, finding his own entertainment, but he looked a little grim here. He saw the same picture Grace did, and looked up to give a sad, serious look at her, but thankfully she was in the middle of talking a small child out of a toy car so she could take a turn on it. Rose intercepted his eyes, and hoped she looked curious enough to warrant an explanation later.

He looked away quickly, almost guiltily, and Rose was forced to wonder what the two of them had done in the past. Were they responsible for that angry woman in the picture?

Hours passed as they wove their way around the museum. Rose worked on distracting Grace for a while, keeping that tinge of sadness away, and when she was finally perky again, the conversation started up. She was easy to talk to. She asked a lot of questions, and listened intently for the answer, even when it seemed she was focused on something else. She always listened. Rose told her about the Earth as she knew it – the celebrities, the jewelry, the heartthrobs – and Grace gave her bits and pieces of the Earth as it was in 2558.

Rose talked about her mum, about her dad, and about the places she had been with the Doctor. From the age of steel to the space age, they talked.

In the modern era, where Rose was from, she relented and started posing for statues. She was here to have fun, after all. Grace pulled the lid off of an ice-cream machine in one of the little break areas and started fiddling with the wires while Rose stood watch, politely informing others that the machine was broken and that they were the repair crew. Grace forced it to spew chocolate ice-cream, got them both a cone, and then announced that it was 'free Earth food day,' and gathered up a crowd of kids to deal with the overflowing machine.

While she had the ice-cream, Grace opened up a little more. She told Rose about her encounter with Polly as a child, and how the dog had come back to life. It was a source of debate between her and the Doctor and she worried that he was angry with her for it.

But other things worried her as well.

"And, you know, I was so sure about what I was saying when I said it. He was being so… black and white. But did you see her face…? I told her that, I gave her that advice, so she could fight back and be happy one day. But she looked miserable. She looked angry. She looked like that was what she had been doing her whole life, and she was never going to stop, not until she died."

Rose leaned against one of the gigantic meteors in the geology exhibit, giving up on walking and trying to lick her ice-cream. "Did she? I mean, did she do it until she died?"

Grace shrugged. "I don't wanna to know. I really, really don't wanna to know. Because I know she did. I already know that. But I don't wanna to see it. Because I did that."

"You just said something to her. You didn't make her become a killer."

"I basically told her it was okay to kill people." Grace groaned, taking a big bite out of her ice-cream, seemingly unaffected by its temperature. "And then Henry died. The Doctor said she ran away, but to where? Did she just wander around in the woods?"

"If you hadn't gone there, all of that would have still happened." Rose felt her guilt, and understood it. She had made bad decisions in the past before as well. She still felt guilty.

Grace shrugged. "I guess so."

"And those people might have died, but you and the Doctor saved them, right?"

"I'm still not sure about that. I don't know what happened with the dog. He keeps asking, but I don't know." She took another bite, and then devoured the cone all at once, like she was afraid someone was going to take it from her.

Grace started circling the displayed rocks, staring at them intently, even leaning in to sniff some of them. She circled one of them, sitting proudly on its podium, and then dove for it.

Rose tried to grab her. "What are you doing?"

She licked it.

Rose checked around them for another husky security guard to escape from, but nothing happened. No one seemed to notice her quick sampling of the exhibit. "Are you crazy? What was that? Do you know how many people have run their grimy hands on that rock?"

Grace made a face, popping her tongue. "Oh, yeah. But what're you gonna do, right?"

"How about you don't lick the rock? That's a start."

"I think it's from Earth." Grace patted it. "Salty."

She turned and headed through the next archway, joining with a crowd that filed toward the food court. Rose followed, dumping the remainder of her ice-cream into a trash bin.

The food court was a towering thing, with clusters of aliens everywhere and the smell of some savory, and some disgusting, foods drifting in puffs of smoke toward the vaulted ceiling. She was assaulted immediately by the sound – hundreds of conversations in various languages, all of them trying to translate in her head at the same time. She was grateful when Grace took a seat near the edge, at a table for two.

Rose sat across from her, groaning when her weight was off her feet. She watched Grace, who seemed thoughtful all of the sudden. "You know, the Doctor licks things like that."

Grace crossed her arms. "Do you think he already knows all of this?" She waved around. "I mean, do you think he knows every bit of this?"

"Probably. I wouldn't put it past him." Rose folded her arms, leaning in so she could lower her voice. "But you know what? I think he took us here to show us how smart he is."

"Why would he do that?"

"He likes it when people tell him he's clever."

Grace laughed, and Rose saw a familiar line of thought running through her eyes.

"So what do you think of him so far? Of all of this?"

Grace shrugged. "The Doctor's weird."

Rose snorted. "Yeah, he is."

"I like this a lot. All of this." She smiled, and then frowned. "But I don't think he's going to let me stay much longer."

Rose couldn't help her surprise, and disappointment. "Why not?"

"I don't think he likes the way I think."

"Well, that's no reason to kick you out!" Rose was a little angry, and she sat up to search the crowd for the Doctor, so she could give him a piece of her mind.

Grace snorted. "You don't have to make it a thing. It's okay."

"We're friends, right?"

Grace looked a little confused, but she nodded.

"Right. So we stick together." Rose stood up, patting Grace on the head. "You go on. I'll catch up. I wanna find the Doctor."

"Don't make it a thing," Grace pleaded.

"It's already a thing. Too late. Thing made. Go on, then."

Grace surprised her with a smile. She stood up, stretched dramatically, and nudged her shoulder as she passed. "I never had a friend before, except for him. Is this what it's always like?"

"I hope it is."

When she had gone through to the next set of exhibits, Rose went back the way they had come. She stood in the doorway, waiting until she saw a poof of brown hair bobbing through the crowd. She snatched him out of the procession and dragged him back to the underpopulated geology exhibit, where Grace had licked the rock.

He gave her that innocent, false-prosecution face. "What did I do?"

Rose was fuming, for almost no reason. "Nothing. Yet."

"Grace isn't _that_ bad. I could have switched with you."

Rose laughed, and then struggled to regain her anger. It was slipping away. "Grace thinks you're mad at her. She thinks you're gonna leave her behind."

He frowned, "Why?"

"She says you had a disagreement over that woman in the picture. I know you saw it, too."

He scratched his head – a telltale sign of guilt – and led her further into the corner, near an employee door. "Yeah, Polly. Did she tell you about her?"

"She said she gave her some bad advice."

The Doctor snorted, a little angry, a little frustrated. "I would say it was more than just bad advice. She led her down a new path, one that destroyed a lot of lives."

"How do you know it wasn't the other things that did that? The mist? Her dad getting killed?"

"You didn't hear what she said-"

"I don't care what she said! You don't get to be all mean and huffy because she said something you didn't like!"

"I have a feeling this isn't about me."

"It is!"

"I'm not being mean and huffy. We bickered. It was over quickly. What's really bothering you?"

Rose hated his even, steady tone, but, admittedly, he was right. He was being nice to her. Before Grace had mentioned it, she hadn't even known they had argued. So why was she so worked up? "I suppose I… I just want her to hang around. Nice having another girl to talk to."

"You're mad at me because you want her to stay?"

"Yeah, sort of, I guess."

He laughed, and hugged her. "You are absolutely precious sometimes."

Rose wiggled out of his arms, and laughed at herself. She realized she was being a mother grizzly. She was already protective of Grace. She was fun, and outgoing, and a little destructive, but childlike, and vulnerable somewhere deep down. Rose could sense it. They were the same age, but she triggered every maternal bone in her body. Why was that?

"I know." The Doctor stepped aside to let a pintsized alien come past him.

"But what…?"

"Do you know why baby animals look so cute?" The Doctor put his arm around her, and spoke a little more softly. "It's so sympathetic creatures like us will come around and protective them, should they lose their parents."

"Are you saying Grace is…?"

"A baby animal, for all intents and purposes."

"She's my age."

"She's your age, in human years. But who knows how long her species takes to grow up? It's just a theory, mind you, but you just gave it a little credence with that display."

"Can we pretend that never happened?"

"'Course we can." He scratched his head again, taking a deep breath. "And even if I wanted to take her home, which I don't, I couldn't. We still don't know what she is. I keep wondering… she told you about the dog, right?"

Rose nodded. "She was… vague."

"It came back to life." His voice became low and urgent, underlined with confusion. "It was beyond what I've seen the wish-makers do in the past. If she did that – if she's _capable_ of something like that…" He watched her for a few intense seconds, all the possibilities running through his normally placid brown eyes, and then he shook himself and smiled. "But it might be my imagination running wild. Besides, I like her – most of the time. What do you think of her? You know, aside from the urge to tuck her under your arm and climb a skyscraper?"

"Oh, you're so funny, Doctor."

"I try to be."

"I like her. But we should probably catch up to her before she licks another exhibit."

"She _licked_ something?"

"Yes. Is that important?"

He scratched his cheek. "Well, it's another clue about what species she is, but it's still just a big old blank."

"She tried to ride a tyrannosaurus model earlier, too, if that matters."

He grinned. "No, that's just entertaining."

"It was. She fell off and squished a paper bush." Rose shared a warm smile with him, and something occurred to her. "Doctor, you don't know _every_ species, do you?"

"No, no. There are far too many."

"Maybe she's something new."

"On the contrary, I get the impression she's something very old."

Beside them, the employee door popped open and whacked both of them on the shoulder. Rose dodged out of the way as three burly men in red pinstripe suits came out. They didn't even look up, only passed through to the cafeteria and nudged their way through the crowd.

Rose rubbed her shoulder. "What was their hurry? And what were they wearing? Me and Grace saw like six security guards already and none of them looked like that."

The Doctor caught the door just before it closed, and tapped a sign that read 'authorized personnel only.' He grinned. "I don't know, but something tells me the special bonus exhibits are this way."

Rose laughed. "I think you might be right."


	31. More Like a Prison

**Chapter 31.**

 **More Like a Prison.**

It was quieter in this part of the museum. The kids were not as interested in wars and carnage as they were in robot dinosaurs and cave people. Before the atmosphere had been very lighthearted, very hopeful, but the more she walked, the more somber it became. Entire walls were taken up by panoramas of faces lost in the wars – the Orion Wars, from her time, and hundreds after it, both on the planet and across the stars. She was shown the slow degradation of her home, from the incredible wildlife she had seen when the Doctor took her to the past to the toxic rain she knew, and beyond; beyond, to the continents breaking to pieces; beyond, to the air becoming like smoke on the surface; beyond, to the empty oceans and bleak, open plains; beyond, to the silence.

In the end all that remained was the quiet. All life had been wiped out. The music cut off and the lights were turned down as Grace walked along its final days.

Grace wondered, again, how the Doctor could do it. He knew what was going to happen to Earth, and yet he took trips there. He found his friends there. He knew that one day they would all wither and die. He knew that every species that ever was would eventually be destroyed. He knew bad people were going to do bad things – she had seen those terrible things listed, displayed, drawn out. Genocide. War. Slavery. How could he stand by and let that happen when he had the tools to stop it? It was not her opinion about the value of life that was wrong, it was his.

Right?

She turned into a corner exhibit entitled 'the remnants of Earth' and listened to testimony from scientists in a dozen little screens all over the walls. They said 'Earth death' was inevitable, from the moment the planet began to form. It was always inevitable, no matter the variable, no matter the planet, no matter the species.

Grace came upon a rock in a glass case in the center of the room. She was drawn to it, almost magnetically. It was collected from the cold, dead planet as a last souvenir.

But it was wrong.

It was not of the Earth. Grace could feel it. She pressed her hands to the glass and felt compelled to test her theory. Rose was not here to object this time.

Before she could lift the case, she heard a high whining sound.

A presence settled around her.

It was heavy, weighing her shoulders down, but it became gentler after a moment. The whining sound subsided, and the presence remained. Grace staggered away from the rock, thinking it came from the case, but it was inside her head. It moved with her. It was all over her like a cloud, like the mist she and the Doctor had seen in the past.

It was waking up.

One moment at a time, she felt it budding inside. She felt it brushing over her thoughts and stunting them. She wanted to be afraid, to go for the exit, but the presence became more like a prison. It was just as the Doctor had described to her. It was the thing he had been so afraid of before, the reason he had offered to take her to the past. He wanted to escape _this_ sensation.

Suddenly, the speakers up above crackled. The presence vanished.

Grace leaned against a monitor, trying to catch her breath. The Doctor was right about what he had felt – it was following him. She needed to tell him as soon as she could find her balance again.

But the lights popped off in the exhibit, and heavy metal doors slammed down over the entryway. Emergency lights came on in all of the glass cases, with a red one shining over each of the sealed exits. It all happened so quickly that by the time she was startled back into mobility, it was too late. She was trapped.

A camera shifted up above. It followed her path across the floor.

"Let me out!" She waved at the camera. "Are you blind? Open the doors!"

A door opened, but not the one she expected. It was behind one of the monitors. The monitor swung away and a hulking, purple-skinned creature emerged, all four eyes focused on Grace.

She backed away, circling around the exhibit. He grabbed for her, but seemed unwilling to charge, instead following her closely. "I don't know what you want. I don't know what you want!" Grace almost stumbled, and the creature held out a hand, but she dodged it. "What? What are you doing? Back off! I don't want to hurt you!"

He was smart. He held himself in a way that made her make a wrong turn, and she got herself stuck against one of the metal walls. In an instant he had a hand around her wrist and he was dragging her back toward the door he had come from.

She struggled, digging her feet into the carpet and then trying to bite her captor. He made a strange sound, like he was gurgling, and pulled her relentlessly, unfazed by her efforts.

Grace did not want to find out what was behind that door.

In fact, it terrified her.

She felt the same terror she had when the mist closed in all around them, and when the Doctor told her Henry was going to be killed. It coursed through her like a fever.

"No! Who are you? Let me go!"

He got her to the doorway, and she clung to the frame, but he was much stronger. He pulled once and her fingers popped off. She staggered into a dim hallway and hit the opposite wall. The door to freedom slammed shut. The alien started dragging her along again.

There were more of them coming. She could see the purple sheen of their skin under the emergency lights. If just one more got a hand on her, it was over.

And then the impossible happened.

The presence returned much more forcefully, only it was not a weight this time, but a power. It surged through her blood like a drug. The hallway flashed brighter. Deep in her arms, the veins gave a green flash with every frantic beat of her heart, showing right through the skin. It burned.

The alien paused, surprised by the light show, and his grip loosened.

Grace took the split second to wrest her wrist away, but as soon as he was not holding her up, she hit the ground. Her muscles coiled up in protest. The tiny veins in her hands were pulsing green, and every heartbeat felt like a million pins prodding her nerves.

She scrambled up, unsteady, and the alien reached out for her.

There was no space to run, no time to think.

Grace thrust her hand at him defensively.

Her palm hit his chest, and as she touched him, she got a snapshot of his entire body in her head. Muscles, tissues, bones, organs – a massive heart pumping away. She heard the strange slither of alien blood in his veins. She felt his mind turning, his synapses firing. It was the same thing she had seen when she touched the Doctor, when she showed him the memory he had been searching for. It had been a mystery to her then, but now it was horrifying.

Because the alien did not smile, as the Doctor had.

He disintegrated.

His body fell backward, into dust, and the dust never settled. It dissipated, like he had never been there at all.

Grace got the awful, sickening thought – _what if I had done that to the Doctor?_ – and the precious seconds she spent going over that in her head were her downfall.

Something hard struck her, and the hallway went black.


	32. The Curator

**Chapter 32.**

 **The Curator.**

Grace woke with the taste of copper in her mouth. Briefly, she thought she was coming out of a dream, perhaps in her own bed, with the Doctor sitting in her recliner. He would have smiled and accused her of being an alien again. He would have asked what she was. He might have accused her of bringing that dog back to life. She wished he was there. The moment her eyes opened, his name came to her lips. It occurred to her that she had killed someone – albeit unintentionally – and the Doctor was the first person she wanted to tell.

She wanted his forgiveness.

But he was not there. She was in some kind of security room, with high-tech monitors covering one wall, and two security guards sitting in mounted chairs, playing a card game. There were other purple-skinned aliens as well, holding unfamiliar weapons and standing by the door.

Grace was wearing a vest that pinned her arms to her body. She was propped up in the corner, in full view of everyone. Escape seemed unlikely.

"What do you want?" She spoke to the purple aliens, tapping her heel on the ground when none of them acknowledged her. "Hey! What do you _want_? If this is about the rock I licked-"

One of them turned and bore his teeth, "The specimen will behave."

The specimen?

"What does that mean?" He went silent. "I know you can talk! Tell me what you mean!"

Nothing. Grace struggled to get her feet under her, failed, and then slid down the wall. She lashed out with both feet, catching one of the aliens in the ankle. He simply moved a little further away. He didn't even look up, and Grace was left half-slouched.

It didn't stay that way for long.

Another alien came in, nodded to the guards, and then came to appraise Grace. He had skin textured like the purple ones, but it was orange, and he was more human. He had two front-facing eyes, bony prominences over his forehead, and a very fancy outfit.

He crouched right in front of her and poked her in the cheek, where the mayor from the past had given her quite a bruise. Grace leaned away from the touch.

He wrote something on a clipboard.

"What do you want?" She struggled to sit up again, scooting into her corner.

The orange alien smiled, and wrote on his clipboard again. "You can talk. Very good." His voice was high and regal, and sharp like his eyes. "You, my dear, have the honor of being added to a very special collection dedicated to your people. Contain your excitement."

Grace felt a jolt. _My people?_

"I'm human. _This_ museum is for my people."

He shook his head, noting something else in his clipboard. "No. Everyone gets scanned as they come through the front doors. It looks like you arrived with… one human, and one… Time Lord? Is that correct?" He looked back at the guards, giving an excited laugh. "I'll have to look into that! Oh, but they're so much trouble, aren't they? But so unique. Every one of them."

"I'm _human_."

The alien pulled a device from his belt, running it over her face and then checking the screen. He nodded. "Yes. No. But you _are_ terribly confused. I have to say, I'm honored. You're the first Lightbringer to ever come to this museum. I had lost hope of ever seeing one."

Lightbringer.

Strangely, the name seemed familiar.

"I don't know what you mean," Grace went on. "Let me go."

"I can't do that. That would be… well, that would be akin to treason. I'm the Curator, my sweet. I'm not ever going to let you go."


	33. They Never Left

**Chapter 33.**

 **They Never Left.**

Rose was reminded of the halls constructed by Henry van Statten in Utah, in the not so distant future. Tall, metal, bleak, and dimly lit. Every now and then doors popped up, leading into different exhibits and private staff areas, but the place was mostly empty. It was eerie. Every turn took them deeper into the web of the museum, and when Rose would have turned back a long time ago, the Doctor insisted they go on. He thought something was wrong. He had a gut feeling.

She thought about Grace as they walked. She seemed independent enough to do fine on her own, but she might wonder where they had gotten off to. Rose knew firsthand how scary it was to be left alone on an alien planet. It was something the Doctor couldn't understand.

"What kind of alien do you think she is?"

The Doctor frowned at her question, patting one of the walls as he passed. "Honestly, I've spent hours, days, pouring over it, and I've got nothing. Nothing."

"You said you had a lot of pieces. What kinds of aliens are there like her?"

"None. That's the puzzle, isn't it? I mean, as far as the humanoid races go, there's a big old list – the Thal and Kaled; I suppose you could count the Dryth; the Gond; the Euterpians; the Judoon sort of count but, realistically, if she's a Judoon we need to have a serious talk; um, the Trakenites. Funny thing, the Trakenites had psychic abilities."

"We could narrow that down."

"Oh, no. That's not the whole list. That's a sliver of the list. Rose, there are a billion, billion sentient beings in the universe, spread across time and space. I haven't met them all."

She nodded. "Right, then. No narrowing."

"With what she could do, I would put her among the ancient races, but honestly I never knew much about them. Some evolved, thrived, and were wiped out before the Time Lords _existed_."

Rose was not following him. "But you have a time machine."

"Yes, but I haven't been popping in and documenting every humanoid life form since the dawn of sentience, now have I?"

She shrugged. "Okay, so she licks rocks and she might have brought a dog back to life. What does that tell us?"

"It tells us she might have a sense of taste like a Time Lord." He avoided the dog part altogether, giving her a meaningful look. "She's a little telepathic like a Time Lord, too."

"Do you think she could be one?"

"No. One heart. Besides, I would know." He made a face, as if asking himself if he would know. He looked disturbed. "Besides, there are no _half_ -Time Lords. Our genes are always dominant. And I would _know_. We can sense it."

"What's the most similar thing to a Time Lord, then?"

The Doctor paused, and he seemed to get caught in a thought, but he shook it off. "Every race that comes to mind is extinct, and has been for a very long time."

"But she could have come from-"

"No. She couldn't have."

It was strange to see the Doctor, who was usually so open to odd ideas, shut it down like that. His eyes were very serious. He was defensive. But what was he thinking about? What could put him on edge like that? She usually only saw that side of him when it had to do with the Daleks, or the loss of his people. But Grace was too young to be involved in that. She certainly wasn't a Dalek.

He started walking again, shaking that part of the conversation off. "Plenty of species are telepathic. I once met a species that could morph into anything at will."

"Kind of seems like you lot got the short end of the stick in the cool powers department."

He gasped, looking absolutely and hysterically offended. "I'll have you know knowledge is the best power. Time Lords are the greatest thinkers in the universe!"

"Greatest thinkers, alright. I've seen you struggle with pretty obvious things."

"Well, I can travel through time. So there."

Rose laughed. "I suppose that is the catch-all. Still, it'd be cool if you could-"

"Uh, halt!"

Both of them froze and turned around, so in sync that they startled the security guard that was running up behind them. He was human, a little husky, and wearing his nametag slanted. He had his hand on his radio and he looked flabbergasted.

"How did you get back here?"

The Doctor produced his psychic paper, cool as always. "Uh, inspection. Yes. We're doing an inspection of this, er, hallway. Looks very nice."

The security guard, whose crooked name read Barkley, leaned in to look at the paper. He squinted. "Oh. Well you can't be back here. I'm sorry. We're, uh, closing up this area."

The Doctor tucked his paper away and glanced at Rose. "Now, I know why _I'm_ lying, but why are _you_ lying, Barkley? Is something wrong?"

Barkley stood a little straighter. "Y-You're lying?"

"Yes, but that's beside the point. Why are you so jumpy?"

"Y-Y-You should go back to the museum. It's dangerous back here."

"It's just an empty hallway," Rose pointed out.

Barkley cleared his throat. "I'll have to, um, call someone. Security."

"If you tell us what's wrong, we might be able to help." Rose gave him a reassuring smile. "It's alright. What are you so worked up about?"

"I mean it. I'll call them."

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Call them."

Rose hissed, " _Doctor_."

"He won't, because he's not supposed to be here, either. Isn't that right, Barkley?"

"Uh, no. I work here."

"Do you work in this hall, specifically?"

"No." He glanced around, uncertain, and then gave in, as most people did, to the Doctor's curiosity. "I was… um… I heard something weird and I was…"

"Snooping." The Doctor took the man by the arm, leading him closer to the wall and leaning in importantly. He lowered his voice. "What did you hear, exactly?"

Barkley floundered.

Rose put her hand on his shoulder. "It's okay."

"No… I don't think it is." He glanced around again, and then spoke in a rushed whisper. "I heard the Curator talking about a specimen, but we haven't gotten any shipments in over a week. And the way he talked… I think he might have… you know…"

The Doctor became more serious. "No, I don't know. Tell me."

"I think he took someone out of the museum."

Rose didn't like the sound of that. "You mean like he kidnapped them?"

"And I think it's happened before. Last week, uh, my first week here, two visitors went missing. A couple. No sign of them. Stamped for entry, but they never left."

"What makes you think someone was taken today?" The Doctor already had the cogs turning in his head. Rose could almost see smoke in his ears.

Barkley swallowed. "I got kicked out of the control room. I think that's where they're keeping it – er, him or her."

The Doctor looked at Rose, and then nodded to Barkley. "I think we should take a walk to the control room and do a little poking around."

It was not a long walk. Barkley took them straight to the control room, scanned his little keycard, and then poked his head inside. He tipped the door the rest of the way open, appearing confused. The room was empty. Monitors showed different parts of the museum, and thousands of guests mulling about, but there was no one there to watch.

The Doctor went straight to the monitors and started scanning them with his screwdriver. Barkley was distraught. He ran his hands over his hair, nearly pulling the roots out.

"I swear they were here. It wasn't that long ago. They told me to go check on a noise in the docking bay, and I was on my way back when I found you guys. It wasn't that long!"

"Relax. Hey, easy." Rose took his arm, directing him to a chair. "They must have just gone."

"I'm gonna get fired." Barkley groaned. "I'm gonna get fired _again_."

Rose grasped for something to distract him. "Um, so, what exactly did you hear? You said something about a Curator. Didn't you mention that, Doctor?"

The Doctor was wedged halfway behind the monitors. He looked up at the sound of his name, nodding. "Yes. Curators. Five of them. Hive mind. Last of a dying race. Ironically, they've spent their enormously long lives collecting relics from _other_ civilizations."

"I've just seen the one," Barkley said. "He runs the whole place."

The Doctor returned to whatever he was doing, and Rose asked, "What did he say that made you suspicious? You said he talked about a specimen. Did he say what kind?"

"No. Just that it was unique. He was all worked up about it."

Rose glanced at the monitors, a dark thought coming to her. "Doctor…"

"I know. I thought about her, too." He shined his screwdriver on a wire, and the monitors changed suddenly. They displayed a darker area. He stepped back, frowning. "Oh, hello. Secret tapes behind a secret door. Just keeps getting better."

Rose stood, getting close to make out the details in the video. As the details came to her, so did a sense of dread. Cages. Lines of cages, with aliens moving around inside.

The Doctor scowled. "Specimens, I presume."

"Where are they?" Rose glanced at Barkley, and then at the Doctor. "We have to get them out."

"Does this place have a basement?" The Doctor cut the monitors off, his expression set in that dark determination he got whenever he saw anyone being victimized.

Barkley grabbed a set of keys from the table. He seemed to have regained his confidence, now that his suspicions were confirmed. "Yes. I can take you there."


	34. The Cold Light of Day

**Chapter 34.**

 **The Cold Light of Day.**

Grace was not allowed to walk. She was carried down the hall by one of the hulking red aliens, and the smell of being bundled up under his arm reminded her of a bog. He was silent, walking dutifully behind the Curator, even when she tried to bite him.

Despite the lack of answers she had gotten so far, she kept trying. "What do you want? What did you call me? What does that mean?"

The Curator stopped by a metal elevator, waving his hand over a light panel on the wall. He had an accent similar to the one shared by the Doctor and Rose, but his voice was lofty, like he was above everything. "You will join the exhibit in the third quadrant."

"But what does that _mean_?"

"You will be preserved." He glanced at her, still seeming delighted. "It is the responsible thing to do. You are a rarity, and not even fully grown, you are invaluable."

"I'm _human_! How many times do I have to tell you that?"

He didn't respond, and she realized it was useless to try and convince him. His little machine had done the talking. But what did it mean? She was sure she had heard the word before. Lightbringer. Perhaps the Doctor had spoken of it.

She only knew of one creature that seemed sure of what she was.

She asked the Curator.

"What am I?"

"Poor little lost creature." The Curator patted her on the head. "It is surely a travesty, to see one of you so isolated. But you shouldn't worry. Yes… I have just the place for you."

Grace didn't like the way he said that. She imagined being pressed and preserved like the ancient butterflies in her university. Everything he said made him sound more sinister.

The elevator doors opened and the alien carried her inside, setting her on her feet in the corner and then standing so she barely had room to move. Grace peeked around him as the doors closed, getting a last look at the hallway before the elevator started going down.

"Oh, you _must_ see the museum." The Curator was beaming. He had his little device out and he seemed to be flicking through things on the screen. "I consider it the most definitive collection of Lightbringer history in the _universe_. It has not even been announced to the public yet. But this… this changes everything."

The elevator plummeted for several minutes, until Grace started to feel a little strange. When it finally stopped, the Curator was the first out, and the alien picked her up again. She squirmed around, getting glimpses of a massive open area, and a series of cages with living creatures in them. She only had a moment in the cave before it vanished, and her face was squished into a rough leather seat. The alien grabbed her and pulled her upright, allowing her to sit up.

The Curator was across from her. He put his device down and waved around. "Welcome to the Network. It goes through the whole planet."

It was a cave, as she had imagined, but it was nothing like anything she had ever seen. The ceiling was jagged, arching up above, sometimes ending in darkness. Huge pillars of stone ran along the dirt road they were driving down. Behind them, the cages were rapidly disappearing, and on all sides there was only darkness. No lights. No other vehicles. Just darkness.

"I think you will be very glad for how I have pieced together your history." The Curator went on, insisting on talking to her. "It was an honor, of course."

Grace lunged for him, but the red alien batted her into her seat like she was made of feathers. She hit the leather so hard the breath was knocked out of her.

"Calm down. It's always the little ones, isn't it?" The Curator looked at his bodyguards, nodding to himself. "Anyway, as I see it, you seem to have no concept of what you are. Is that true?"

Grace ground her teeth. That was true for both her species and her life. She had two lives interacting in her head – false memories, real memories. The difference was unclear.

He made a clicking sound with his tongue. Did he have a tongue?

"I can remedy that."

"Just let me go."

"I can't do that."

" _Why_?" Grace groaned. "I don't want to take your stupid tour. Just do what you're gonna do and get it over with! Or let me go."

"I choose neither of those options."

"It's an either-or. You can't choose neither."

"Hot-headed, aren't you? I suppose I can allow it, considering your youth."

"I'm really not that young."

"For a human, maybe not. But for a Lightbringer…" He checked his device again, and the truck gave a little sideways heave, almost throwing Grace out of her seat. He was unbothered by the motion.

"What does that _mean_?"

"I thought you didn't want my tour?"

She had the sudden urge to lunge again, but something was coming up beyond the vehicle. It was a stone shaft with an elevator tucked into it. It had the letters DMP engraved over the doors.

The alien set her on the ground beside the elevator, and the Curator waved his hand over the button again. He noticed her looking up and nodded. "We have many names for this part of the planet. We group the carbon-based sentient lifeforms together, and this one is right beside the DME, and not far from the DMG. I am sure you are familiar with the latter, since you are traveling with a Time Lord."

"W-What does that mean?"

"DMG means Definitive Museum of Gallifrey – the Time Lord home world. It has a much longer history, so the museum is several times larger than the DME."

"What about this one?" Grace motioned to the letters above them. "What does DMP mean?"

"Definitive Museum of Parrsus, home world of the Lightbringers."

Grace swallowed. The elevator doors opened. She walked in willingly, now more curious than afraid. Parrsus. She had a home world. She had a species. Were there others like her up above them? Were there answers for who she was, and what she could do?

The elevator ascended, and her mind raged with questions.

The Curator noticed. "If you would like that tour after all…"

"Yes." Grace nodded to him. "Give me the tour. Tell me everything."

When the doors opened, they were another dark grey, metal hallway, like the one in the DME. This time the Curator led her to an unmarked door, checked outside, and then motioned to one of his bodyguards. "Remove her restraints. We won't be needing them."

Grace was surprised. She had literally obliterated someone not long ago. When the vest came off of her arms she checked them for glowing veins, but there was only plain skin.

"Come with me." The Curator stepped outside, holding the door for her.

Grace followed him.

They were in the lobby of another museum. It was globe-shaped, like the Earth one, but the lights splaying the walls were very different. Instead of the blues and greens of the planet she knew, there were bright reds, intense oranges, and paler greens. Images of landscapes beyond the possibility of even her wild dreams were displayed and captioned all over the place. In royal green letters across the first arch, the origins section, were the words " _Lightbringers: The Guardians of Life_."

The Curator walked to the first arch, nodding. "This way."

Grace stepped into a dizzying display of the origins of an ancient planet. Videos and commentaries from scientists explained the formation and the first few million years.

"Parrsus had four moons at the start," the Curator said, his hands folded behind his back like he was teaching a lecture. "It was also within range of two stars, giving it an odd, but somewhat perfect, recipe for life. Creation myths from the planet itself claim that Parrsus was always there, since the dawn of the universe, and that the Lightbringers always existed, but modern discoveries have given us new information – and we know now that this planet was not the first, but it was certainly _one of_ the originals, and the Lightbringers were Celestial Peoples."

"What does that mean?"

"There is no definition, but the Time Lords are among them, if you need a reference point."

Grace swallowed.

"The way that I understand it is that the Celestial Peoples each possess great power over the universe. The Time Lords were, of course, the Lords and Keepers of Time, whereas the Lightbringers were the Lords and Keepers of Life. While the Time Lords worked with the little understood Time Vortex, the Lightbringers manipulated the Dust of Creation."

Grace ran her hands over a series of plaques showing the myths of the Lightbringers. Beautiful colors displayed the origination of the universe, with Parrsus at the center, and two strange green stars twinkling nearby.

The Curator motioned to the next room. "Shall we?"

"Did that mean… did that mean they could bring things back from the dead?"

"Come along. Your answer is this way."

Grace followed him again, scanning the next series of exhibits. It was history. Stuffed animals were displayed in cases in the center. Two green stars were hanging up above.

"For millions, perhaps billions, of years, the Lightbringers, the Shapers among them, breathed life into the universe, planting the seeds – according to legend – for no less than a million species. Of course, the war with the Time Lords severely stunted their-"

"The _what_?"

"The war." He frowned. "I keep forgetting how little you know."

"What war? Why would they fight the Time Lords?"

"The Time Lords were very peaceful, with an innate respect for life, and a strong desire to preserve the natural order of the universe, despite their capacity for time travel. Of course they fought."

"But you said the Lightbringers gave life."

"They did. All of the legends say that Shapers could literally pull apart the components of life and rearrange them as they pleased – granting life, and taking it away. It is the latter that sparked their feud with the Time Lords."

"…taking it away…"

"Yes. You exercised that ability on one of my guards, though I've never heard of a child who could."

"I'm not a child."

"But you are."

Grace took a deep breath, turning around and around and finally finding a caption that matched her thoughts. She went to the illustration, which showed two warring cities. She had seen one of them before. She had helped the Doctor bring a memory to the front of his mind, and that city was in it. But in this picture, the other city, the Lightbringer city, was bombarding it.

"Yes, I was surprised to see you come in with a Time Lord." The Curator joined her, shaking his head. "Particularly _that_ one. He has a long and storied history of saving lives, and the Lightbringers, as a species, are singularly responsible for wiping out billions."

"What?" It got darker with everything he said. She barely believed him.

He was grim and serious. "Yes. They were a monstrous species from the moment they originated to the day they were wiped out."

"They were… wiped out? How?"

"The Time Lords got fed up, I suppose. We have little information on that time period. But if there was one thing in the universe they loathed, historically, more than the Dalek, it was Lightbringers. But that was ages ago. We thought the species was extinct. Seeing you gave me renewed hope."

"But you said..."

"I have artifacts, and skeletons, and pieces of your home planet, but nothing more. Tell me, little one, where do you come from? How did you survive?"

Grace backed away from him, letting his words settle in. She had been curious about what she was since she was little, being clearly nonhuman, but not clearly anything else. But now she didn't want to know. She didn't want to be a part of this race. She didn't want to know that the Doctor, the only real friend she had in the world, was responsible for the destruction of her people. She didn't want to know that they _deserved_ it. Billions, the Curator had said. Billions wiped out.

And she could not deny it, because the dog had come back to life. She had seen it in her mind and felt it stir inside, and brought it back to life.

Did the Doctor already know what she was? How could he keep this from her? If he didn't know, what would he do when he found out? The Curator said Time Lords hated her kind. They _destroyed_ her kind. The Doctor thought life was sacred – would he kill her to protect the universe from what she could do? What _could_ she do?

The Curator regarded her sadly. "I never knew of a Lightbringer dying of old age. Legends tells us that some of them lived for thousands of years and died in glorious combat. You are but a child. You are just beginning. You are like the little Time Lords who possess minds like no others, but are unstable because of it. Think of the damage you could do. Think of the power you could wield, with no rules or boundaries, because the keepers of those rules, the Time Lords, have perished."

Grace thought of the hallway, of the alien dissipating into dust at the touch of her hand. The Curator was right. She was dangerous. Perhaps that was why the Doctor invited her along.

"Oh, no. I know what you're thinking." The Curator was nodding, using a frustrating, calm voice. "But I know of your friend, and he is too young to have witnessed the war. Millions of years have passed, will pass. Which, again, begs the question… how did you get here?"

Grace swallowed. "I don't know. I thought _you_ knew."

"No. And no Time Lord would ever spare a Lightbringer. So who did? Who helped you?"

Grace backed toward the next archway as the Curator approached. He was becoming more excited, more frantic, as his questions went on.

"Is there another Lightbringer? Where is it? You must tell me!"

"I don't know!"

"Foolish child!"

She thought to turn and run, but the red aliens were gathering, sensing the distress of their superior. Grace was trapped in a circle of them, with the Curator nearing. He produced a large needle with a glowing blue liquid inside.

"Seize her. The tour is over."

One alien took each of her arms, preventing any movement. Grace jerked against them anyway. "What was the point of this?"

"I thought I could draw it out of you, but I suppose it can be dissected. Same result." The Curator bore his needle, expelling a little of the liquid. It hit the carpet and sizzled right through it.

"Draw _what_ out?" Grace careened backward, away from the tip.

"Where is the Dust? Give it to me!"

Suddenly the presence weighed down on her again.

It did not simply stir this time, but awakened all at once.

Her hands twisted of their own accord and her palms flattened on the arms of the aliens that held her. Without so much as a whisper, they became nothing. They became the air. Dust settled where they had been. Grace felt the room grow colder at their absence.

The Curator stumbled back, dropping his needle.

Grace hit her knees, and then staggered upright, pursuing the Curator. The red aliens converged on her, and every time one was close, she struck out at it – she didn't even touch them this time, and they burst away as grains of sand, sprinkling the floor.

"No! Wait! You can go! You can leave! I'm sorry!"

The Curator stumbled to a crawl, and made it to a corner, where he turned and pleaded with her. His hands were clasped together.

Grace almost walked away.

But it occurred to her that the Curator and the aliens in that room were the only ones who knew this horrible secret. They knew what she was, and what she could do, and how many she had already killed. She counted five.

Two red aliens appeared in the archway and ran for her.

Six. Seven.

Sirens sounded up above, and three human guards came from the opposite direction.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Grace kept her thoughts locked away, but every time one of them fell, and the dust settled, she felt a stab of fear and emptiness. It was the last thing they felt. It was the end of their life.

The Curator continued to wail for his life. "I only wanted to complete my collection!"

"No…" Grace held out her hand, watching the veins pulse with that eerie green light. It was beautiful. "No… you wanted the Dust. Isn't that what you said? What does that mean?"

"I wanted… I wanted to bring my specimens back to life!"

It was something else. It had to be.

" _Liar_!"

He flinched. "With power like that… I could do anything."

"You want power? Do you know what I want? I just want to live. I want to be happy, just one stupid time! And you know what? The Doctor makes me happy. He's my friend."

"He will never forgive you. Look at what you have done!"

Grace placed her hand on his skull, and like the others, he became nothing. He was nothing. She felt his fear as it faded from the room.

Eleven.

And she spoke to the dust that remained.

"He'll never know."


	35. Below

**Chapter 35**

 **Below.**

Cages. Entire lines of them. He could identify only a few of the creatures inside. It was certainly a collection of rarity. Someone had managed to capture the most beautiful and exotic species in the universe, and house them here, like dogs in a kennel. He experienced a jolt of true revulsion toward whoever had done this. This was not life. This was terrible.

He went down the line unlocking one cage at a time, murmuring instructions for them to wait in line for the elevator. Rose was closer to it. She looked equally disgusted by what had been done here, and she spoke gently to the aliens that approached her, guiding them to their freedom. Barkley was there as well, having a conversation over the radio. He was calling for their backup. Whatever peace-keeping agency policed this section of stars would arrive shortly to deal with this crime, and hopefully get the prisoners back where they belonged.

He asked every alien the same question. "Where is the Curator?" No one knew, but they had seen him not long ago. He was going down that long, dark tunnel, deep into the cave system.

The Doctor stood by the mouth of it when everyone had been let out. Tire tracks led into the darkness. He had quite a head start, and the Doctor suspected that tunnel went through the entire planet. He would never catch up.

"Nobody here has seen Grace." Rose came over, nudging him. "She's probably in the museum."

"Probably." He had felt an intimate fear when he imagined Grace in one of the cages, but it faded now. She was probably wandering around and disturbing the peace. He was glad she had not seen the cages. She had a hard time dealing with slavery as it was.

When the authorities arrived, they swept a few lingering guards out of the shadows and hauled them away. Big old red-skinned creatures, reptilian in origin, walked silently with their hands bound. They were very large, but didn't fight back.

Rose looped her arms into one of his. "Come on. Let's go find Grace and get out of this place."

They took a leisurely walk back upstairs and wandered the exhibits for a while, until they found their companion sitting in the lap of a Lincoln Memorial recreation. She hopped up when she saw them, giving the Doctor a brilliant smile that swept away some of his uncertainty.

"Where have you guys been? I was looking for you."

Was she?

The Doctor sensed something in her. She looked a little off-center.

"We were just clearing out the basement. Nothing complicated." Rose was perky. "And I think we've spent enough time here."

Grace was visibly relieved. "I'm so glad you said that."

Rose gave their friend a quick recap of the situation in the basement on the way back to the TARDIS. Grace listened, but she seemed far away from it all. The Doctor wondered if seeing the history of the planet had been too much for her to take in all at once.

On the horizon, a pillar of smoke was rising. He stopped one of the passing officers.

"What's going on over there, then?"

"One of the other buildings caught fire."

"What was it?"

"I don't know. Nobody did. It was still being built. The Curator never opened it. They already cleared it – no bodies inside. No Curator."

"That's a shame," Grace spoke from the doorway of the TARDIS, looking long and thoughtful at the plume of smoke.

The Doctor got a strange sense from those words.


	36. The Text

**Chapter 36.**

 **The Text.**

Grace departed the TARDIS into a tight, metal room. She felt immediately unsettled, like the floor had gone from under her, like she was drifting. She caught signs of metal all around, and the taste of it in the air. But the discomfort was hers alone. Her companions were airy and excited, as always, even in a little box like this.

The Doctor came out frowning, patting the TARDIS door. "I wonder what's wrong with her. She's sort of queasy. Indigestion. Like she didn't want to land."

Rose sympathized. "If you think there's gonna be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else."

They shared a look, and burst into laughter.

Rose nudged Grace. "No worries. Trouble is our specialty. Can be yours too, huh?"

It was easy to lose track of time inside the TARDIS, but Grace figured she had spent a few days with the Doctor so far. Just a few. And what had she seen already? A doomed town in 1851 and wish-granting mist? A museum with a Curator who wanted to collect her? And how many people had she killed? Eleven. That number stuck in her head.

When she got nudged, she tried a smile. "Uh, yeah, sure."

"You okay?" Rose, sometimes a lot more perceptive than the Doctor, must have noticed something in her eyes. She frowned, squeezing her shoulder. "You don't have to be used to it yet. It takes time. I know it can be a little… scary. And he doesn't notice."

The Doctor was already walking toward a door. "I think we've landed inside a cupboard."

Rose urged Grace on. "See? But we're both here with you."

Grace was not usually afraid of strange places – but this place seemed different. It felt different. She couldn't put her finger on it yet.

The Doctor was forcing a circular door handle open. He puffed out a breath, and as Grace and Rose got to him, the handle spun and the door depressurized with a soft whooshing sound.

When it opened, a robotic voice announced, "Open door 15."

The Doctor stepped out first, glancing around. "Some sort of base. Moon base, sea base, space base. They build these things out of kits."

The next room was hardly bigger than the first, and it had even more metal. Bolts held together pillars that sloped toward the ceiling. It was cramped and it smelled like oil. Grace tried to place the appearance and she came up with a submarine. The DME had dozens of pictures of them, and she remembered wondering why people would stuff themselves inside.

But the size was not the only unsettling thing about this hallway. It had thin metal walls and it sounded like the wind was pelting them. With biology as a major, she knew some properties of metal, but these metals felt strange. When she ran her fingers over them, she got the impression they came from far away. Refined and pressed and wedged into this place, tingling with the faintest magnetic field, itching to go back where they came from.

Rose was a little on edge. "Glad we're indoors. Sounds like a storm out there."

Grace leaned over the railing, peering at the wall as if a window would materialize. Did the storm have something to with the sensation of drifting? Or was it something more exciting?

"Do you think we're in space?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Very possible." He was at the next door, spinning the handle. "Just how 'bout if we see a window, we look out before we open it."

"Says the man blundering through every door he finds."

"You got me there. I love a good blundering!"

The voice came again. "Open door 16." The door gave a whoosh and let the three of them into a narrow walkway. More metal, only the walls were imprinted with patterns, and the railing kept them from straying off the grated floor. The walls were further away now, and the storm was louder. Fuzzy little lights dotted the ceiling.

The Doctor talked his whole way down, picking up a thought he must have dropped earlier. "Human design, you've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat-pack wardrobe, only bigger and easier."

He said the strangest things sometimes.

Grace nudged rose. "What is that?"

"A flat-pack wardrobe? Uh, well, it's this thing I never used. See, organized people like to keep their clothes all… well, organized. I never saw the point in it."

"So it's like a dresser?"

"Sort of. More slots and things, but yeah."

"Why didn't he just say dresser?"

"I ask myself that question a lot. He likes hearing himself talk."

The Doctor looked back at them. "Oi, never tease the DTD. That's designated TARDIS driver."

Rose rolled her eyes so hard they might have gotten stuck up there. Grace laughed. He _did_ like hearing himself talk. But she did, too. His accent was interesting, and he sometimes meandered, losing himself in his own strange mind. As they stood there, it was becoming clearer to her – the fiery cloud that was the Doctor. And Rose, crowding the hall with her warmth. She could feel their resting emotions, like a constant hum in her head.

The Doctor got the door open, and the voice announced, "Open door 17."

He looked thrilled, striding out into the open again. "Oh, it's a sanctuary base!"

Sanctuary. Grace filed in after him, and Rose shut the door. They were in a circular common room with a few yellow accessories – yellow tables and chairs, yellow stripes on the walls, yellow caution signs. The floor was made up of the same metal grids. It reminded her of a meeting room in the university, only grimier and colder.

And something was humming.

The Doctor roamed the room. "Deep-space exploration. We've gone way out. And listen to that. Underneath. Someone's drilling."

 _Drilling_?

She could find some great rocks in that case, perhaps something never seen before. But how could they be drilling, when she got the sensation that they were drifting? She must have been woozy from traveling in the TARDIS.

Her eyes caught on the far wall, where the words 'Welcome to Hell' were written in black paint. Below them, gorgeous black script flowed downward like an Old East poem. For a moment she only appreciated the ascetic, the eerie warning, the oddity of what they had stumbled upon, but as she looked at the letters they began to shimmer.

Rose read the sign aloud.

The Doctor was alerted. "Oh, it's not that bad."

Rose laughed, turning him toward the letters. "No, over there."

A serious note entered the air. Grace felt the change just like the humming. His emotions, now so clear to her, began to roil like the storm outside. Curiosity. It dominated him. Rose reacted to it. Her warm glow lessened with a drop a fear, a strain of worry.

The Doctor ran to the writing. "Hold on." He stood before the scrawled words, gawking at them. "What does that say? That's weird. It won't translate."

"But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well." Rose joined him, giving Grace a glance over her shoulder. "I should see English. What do you see?"

Grace shook her head. "Just, fuzzy."

The Doctor was in his own head. "Not if it's not working, then it means… this writing is _old_. Very old. _Impossibly_ old."

Just like the Lightbringers.

The Curator told her there were myths about them – that they had always been there. She rejected the thought outright, blaming it on her paranoia about what she had done, but the presence was stirring inside. It was curious. She was curious. The text on the wall could be from her people.

The Doctor stood. "We should find out who's in charge."

Grace went to the text as her companions went to the next door. She ran her fingers over the letters, squinting, trying to get the shimmering to stop. She saw bits and pieces of words, but it was incomprehensible. Her head began to ache.

The Doctor spun the next door handle. He was talking to Rose. "We've gone beyond the reach of the TARDIS's knowledge. Not a good move. And if someone's looking for-"

The door popped open and they both squealed.

Grace rushed up behind them, worried for the cold flashing inside. Fear. If someone was trying to hurt them – the two best people she had ever met – she was going to intervene.

There was an alien in the doorway. It looked like the humanoid version of a squid, with huge, dark, slanted eyes, pale, wrinkled up skin, and tentacles where its mouth should have been. It had a glowing orb gripped in one hand. There were two more aliens behind it.

The Doctor spoke quickly. "Right, hello. Sorry. I was just saying, nice place."

The creature spoke, and its orb glowed. "We must feed."

Her emotional field spread beyond the Doctor and Rose. She got an impression from the alien – a dim, dying flame. It felt nothing. It _was_ nothing. She would not have believed it was even alive if it weren't standing right in front of her.

The Doctor responded to it. "You gotta what?"

"We must feed."

Rose grabbed his arm, forcing him away. "Yeah, I think they mean us!"

Grace backed into the center of the room. Behind them, other doors popped open, and more of the creatures approached, repeating those words in a sinister harmony. "We must feed. We must feed. We must feed."

They were backed into a corner. The Doctor had his screwdriver out, and Rose wielded one of the yellow chairs. Grace tried to awaken the green glow that had allowed her to defend herself at the museum, but the presence was suddenly absent. Grace huddled into the back, utterly useless, and looked for a weapon on the floor.

And then the aliens paused, within striking distance.

The one in front spoke. "We must feed…" He smacked the ball in his hand, making it rattle. Its light flickered. "…you, if you are hungry."

The Doctor dropped his defensive pose. "Sorry?"

"We apologize." The leader sounded serene. "Electromagnetics have interfered with speech systems. Would you like some refreshment?"

Grace nudged Rose. "The chair."

"Oh, right, sorry." She set it down.

The Doctor responded. "Um…"

"Open door 18."

On the platform above, one of the yellow doors opened. Three humans rushed out. In the lead was a man with glittering dog tags around his neck. He saw them, and the confident look on his face was wiped away. "What the hell…?"

He had his hand on his gun. Grace fixated on it as he came down the stairs.

"How did…?" He narrowed his eyes at them, flabbergasted. Grace began to feel what he felt, and he appeared as a lesser cloud of confusion and aggression. He spoke into a radio on his wrist. "Captain, you're not gonna believe this. We've got people. Out of nowhere. I mean, real people. I mean… three living people, just standing here right in front of me."

What an odd thing to say. Grace did not like the implication. She was a quick thinker, and the first thing that came to mind was that they were not in a place people commonly dropped into out of the blue, like the museum or the town in the past.

Another male voice crackled on the radio. "Don't be stupid, that's impossible."

"I suggest telling them that," Dog-tag man responded.

Rose butted out from behind the Doctor's shoulder. "But you're a sort of space base. You must have visitors now and then. It can't be that impossible."

Dog-tag man was baffled. "You telling me you don't know where you are?"

The Doctor, true to form, answered honestly, with a grin. "No idea. More fun that way."

A voice came over the intercom.

"Stand by, everyone. Buckle down. We have incoming, and it's a big one. Quake 0.5 on its way."

Dog-tag man ran for another door, turning the handle furiously. Veins popped out of his neck. "Through here!" He opened it, beckoning them. "Now! Quickly, come on! Move!"

While the others sprung to life, rushing toward the door, Grace remained. For a split second, and perhaps a second too long in this kind of situation, she stood transfixed. Her eyes caught on the writing. It was starting to make more sense now. It was a story. It was a horrible story.

The Doctor grabbed her and dragged her along, hissing, "What is it? _Grace_?"

"The letters…" Her voice was drowned out by the others' shouting.

He looked at her strangely, but there was no time to stop and talk.

They were led back into the narrow hallway. Steam burst from every pipe. Dog-tag man was yelling at them to keep going, barking orders even as sparks erupted in their path. Grace was suddenly overwhelmed by the sounds, and the feelings. Everyone was present now. The Doctor and Rose remained the strongest, but the three new people radiated fear. It was like the town square in New Fountain all over again – when the mist appeared, everyone ran to the center, and their panic disabled her. But the Doctor helped her. He had put his hands over her ears, and he said…

What did he say?

 _Listen to me. Only to me._

Grace took that advice again. She focused on the ball of fire, the most panicked and curious and excited of them all. He shut out all the rest, easily, because he was the brightest light.

At the end of the hall, they came into a control room. It had a central console like the TARDIS, and chairs around the walls of two levels. There were other humans there, all giving them the same wide eyes as Dog-tag man.

Another man with dog tags and black hair leaned on the console. "Oh, my God, you meant it."

Grace released her focus on the Doctor, finding more calm in this room than in the hallway. It must have been a safe place, to give the such quick relief. The Doctor gave her another strange look, and she had a second to wonder if he could feel her withdrawing.

A woman came up to them, gawking. "People! Look at that, real people."

The Doctor smiled. "That's us. Hurray!"

Rose was just as excited. "Yeah, definitely real. My name's Rose, Rose Tyler, this is Grace," she motioned back, "And this is the Doctor."

From one of the chairs in the back, a long-haired man spoke. "Come on, the oxygen must be offline." He got up, circling the new arrivals. "We're hallucinating. They can't be…" He tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. "No, they're real."

The one at the console waved him off. "Come on, we're in the middle of an alert. Danny, strap up, the quake's coming in. Impact in 30 seconds." People moved at his command, shuffling things around. "Sorry, you three, whoever you are, just hold on. Tight."

"Hold on to what?" Rose asked.

"Anything, I don't care, just hold on."

Grace turned, grabbing the door handle, and Rose and Doctor took opposite ends of a nearby railing. Beyond the weightlessness now was an eerie prickle in her neck. Quake. In outer space?

The man at the console, who seemed like the captain, spoke again, "Ood, are we fixed?"

One of the aliens responded. "Your kindness in this emergency is much appreciated."

The Doctor was alive with curiosity again. He looked all around them, far less worried than Rose and Grace about whatever was going to happen. "What's this planet called, anyway?"

A blonde woman responded from her chair. "Don't be stupid. It hasn't got a name. How could it have a name?" At his clueless expression, she went on, "You really don't know, do you?"

The captain shouted, "And _impact_!"

It was like someone took hold of the ground and shook it right from under her feet. Grace lost her hold on the door and fell, and Rose tumbled on top of her.

The Doctor was still standing. "Oh, well, that wasn't so bad-"

It shook much more violently the second time. Grace dug her fingers into the grate on the floor and got an arm around Rose, who threatened to wobble away. When the shaking relented, she lurched up for the door to help her stand, and it cracked opened.

It _whooshed_ as the pressure changed.

Deep inside, the presence stirred.

She felt the words in the other room, just like she felt the people in this one. But the words did not have a cloud, or a light, or even a flicker – they were cold. Dark. Hungry. Grace looked through the gap in the door, back down the hall, and almost thought she could see them drifting in the air. She couldn't read it, but somehow she knew it was a _story_. It said something terrible.

Grace got out from under Rose and slipped outside. She got halfway down the hallway before a shooting pillar of steam startled her.

She stared at the yellow door at the end, the last thing between her and the writing. But she hesitated. Did she really want to know what it said? She knew it was terrible without even reading it. What could it accomplish? The Doctor himself could not translate it. If he knew that she could, he might see through her. He might figure out what she was.

He might hate her for it.

The door behind her popped open and he stuck his head in, frowning. "Grace?"

She had no excuse. She just stared at him, guilty as could be.

"It's all the people, right?" He stepped in, holding out his hand. "Remember what I told you?"

He thought she was overwhelmed by the sounds in that room. It had been true in the hall, when everyone was afraid, but now they were calm. It wasn't an issue.

But she went with it.

She took his hand. "You said… listen to you."

"Yes. Maybe not too hard, okay?"

He _could_ feel it. But did he understand it?

She went back to the control room with him, and a woman by the wall flipped a switch. Up above, the ceiling began to open. It revealed an orange-and-black mass of light writhing in space. She knew what it was immediately. It was a black hole. It was incredibly dangerous. It was something you avoided at all costs, because it was the end of the line. It was total destruction.

But she was not afraid. When she saw it, she lit up inside. What a beautiful thing! It was a big, ravenous maw, sucking up the universe.

And her friends seemed to have to same thoughts. She had never seen the Doctor look so amazed. His eyes were full of pure wonder. His fiery cloud could encompass the room. Rose beheld it like a gorgeous painting. It was reflected in her eyes.

For a few seconds they only stared.

The Doctor found his voice at last. "But that's _impossible_."

The captain had a name badge on his chest, beside his dangling dog-tags. His name was Zachary Flane. He looked up at the black hole like it was nothing special. "I did warn you."

The Doctor was at a loss. "We're standing under a black hole."

"In orbit," one of the women supplied. Her badge read 'Scooti,' though Grace was unsure if that was a name, or her position. Either way, it was silly.

The Doctor gave a singular head shake. "We can't be."

"You can see for yourself." Another woman, Ida Scott, cut in. "We're in orbit."

"But we can't be!" the Doctor insisted.

Ida spoke like a scientist, with true enthusiasm. "This lump of rock is suspended in perpetual geostationary orbit around that black hole, without falling in. Discuss."

Rose leaned in to the Doctor. "And that's bad, yeah?"

The Doctor continued gazing. He was absolutely transfixed. It was amusing, and humanizing, and worrying. "Bad doesn't cover it. A black hole's a dead star. It collapses in on itself, in and in and in, until the matter's so dense and tight, it starts to pull everything else in, too. Nothing in the universe can escape it. Light, gravity, time, everything just gets pulled inside and crushed."

Grace had a hard time reconciling this with what she had learned at the university. "But… we can't just… we can't _see_ black holes. We just see what they do. We just see the accretion."

"You're looking at it," the Doctor supplied, pointing upward, spinning his finger around the massive thing. "Do you see the lights? The colors? It's tearing stars apart as it pulls them in. The matter is accelerating and heating up, emitting X-rays and gamma ray bursts into space, spurring the growth of new stars in some areas… and stalling it in others."

Rose cut in. "So they can't be in orbit? We should be pulled in."

The Doctor looked at both of them, and responded plainly. "We should be dead."

Ida observed them, unbothered by their discussion of the impossibility of this moment. "And yet, here we are. Beyond the laws of physics. Welcome onboard."

Rose pointed up. "But if there's no atmosphere out there, what's that?"

She was indicating the streams of air that seemed to be passing over their heads, between them and the black hole. It looked like clouds, like wind gusts, but Grace knew what it was. She _felt_ it.

The Doctor provided the answer. "Stars breaking up. Gas clouds. We have whole solar systems being ripped apart above our heads, before falling into that thing."

Grace could feel it. She couldn't understand it, but she felt the black hole up above them. She felt the pressure of it. She felt life being extinguished. Billions and billions of little lights in her head, being snuffed out simultaneously every single second. It would have been maddening, a million crickets chirping in sync, but the presence was there. It was watching. It was listening. Even though it had been the thing to spring to life when she killed those people in the museum, it was there in a different sense now.

Without being told, she knew what was happening. It must have been the presence. It had to be. It was looking through her and telling her these things.

But why?

The ground shook again, and Grace was so fixated on the black hole that she fell down. The Doctor helped her up by both arms, frowning. "You alright?"

"Yeah."

"What were you saying back there, anyway, about the letters?"

"Nothing. I was just scared."

She wondered suddenly if she had been the one to answer him. Where did those words come from? Not her. She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, which she couldn't resist with those big trusting eyes on her, but a lie had come out.

The Doctor did not believe her. It was immediately clear. His suspicion showed in the little furrow of his brow, in the way he released her arm. He had looked at her like that in the museum as well, and she had wondered then if he could see through her. If he could, he was keeping it to himself.

She hoped he would never know.

And she wondered what she would do if he did.


	37. Fly for Your Lives

**Chapter 37.**

 **Fly for Your Lives.**

They waited around the console, and the Doctor asked a few probing questions of the other people in the room. Grace barely heard them, even though she tended to listen a little harder when he spoke. She watched the door they had come from. It led to the hallway, and another door, and on the other side was the mysterious text. She could read it. She knew she could. She just needed a few more moments to look at it. But the Doctor would notice a slipup like that. He was extra vigilant, even when he wasn't looking at her. He was suspicious.

When a lanky blonde man emerged from one of the other doors, Grace redirected her attention.

"The rocket link's fine," he announced a little glumly.

Flane typed something into the console. He and the Doctor had been talking, and now he drew up an image, like a hologram, to reaffirm what he had said. Grace hopped up to join them.

It was the black hole, reduced to a series of pixels and slowly rotating. Even in this state, it was beautiful, made up of an array of reds and shades of black, nestled into the superior blackness of space. It reminded her of protozoa.

Flane gazed at it. "That's the black hole, officially designated K37 Gem 5."

Ida leaned in, her fascination making her the brightest of the base staffers. She could almost outshine the Doctor in that department. Almost.

"In the scriptures of the Veltino, this planet is called Krop Tor, the bitter pill. And the black hole is supposed to be a mighty demon who was tricked into devouring the planet only to spit it out because it was poison."

Rose smiled at Grace. "The bitter pill. I like that."

Grace was glad for her nonchalance – otherwise, those words were nightmare inducing. A monster the size of a black hole, devouring parts of the universe.

The Doctor didn't seem to hear her. "We are so far out. Lost in the drifts of the universe. How did you even get here?"

Flane responded. "We flew in. You see…" He changed the imagine. Now they were shown a green sphere, the planet, with a red funnel shooting out of it. "… this planet's generating a gravity field. We don't know how, we've no idea, but it's kept in constant balance against the black hole. And the field extends out there as a funnel, a distinct gravity funnel reaching out into clear space. That was our way in."

"You flew down that thing?" Rose asked. "Like a rollercoaster."

"By rights, the ship should've been torn apart," Flane went on. "We lost the captain, which is what put me in charge."

"And you're doing a good job," Ida insisted.

Flane gave a strained laugh. "Yeah, well, needs must."

Another of the men, Danny, who had long black hair – the one to poke the Doctor when they first arrived – cut into the conversation. He had rolls of maps in his hands. "But if that gravity funnel closes, there's no way out."

Scooti added, "Oh, we have fun speculating about that."

Danny bopped her with one of his maps. "Oh, yeah. That's the word, 'fun.'"

The Doctor was in his own little world. "But that field would take phenomenal amounts of power, I mean… Not just big, but off the scale. Can I…?" He motioned to the controls.

Ida handed them over. "Sure, help yourself."

Rose nudged Grace. "Come on. Drinks up."

One of the Ood approached with a tray, with a little cup for each of them. Grace had finally realized what they were – she had seen them in the DME, in pictures alongside humans, in homes and gardens and on spaceships. When he spoke to them, the little orb in his hand lit up. His voice was smooth and tranquil. "Your refreshment."

Rose smiled. "Oh, yeah, thanks. Thank you."

Grace couldn't recall ever seeing a label – other than 'Ood' – under any of the pictures in the museum. She took her drink and asked, "What was your name?"

"We have no titles. We are as one."

The Ood walked off, folding his tray under his arm.

Rose frowned. "What were they called?"

"Ood." Grace sipped her drink, finding it strange and acidic. "There were pictures in the museum. I'm not sure what they're for, though."

Danny looked up from his chat with Scooti, surprised by their conversation. "Oh, come on. Where have you been living? Everyone's got one."

Rose and Grace shared a glance _. Got one_? It sounded like he was talking about a dog.

"Well, not me." Rose had a little edge in her voice. "So, what are they?"

Danny spoke matter-of-factly. "They work the mineshaft, all the drilling and stuff. Supervision and maintenance. They're born for it. Basic slave race."

Henry came to mind, and Grace accidentally crushed her little cup in her palm. Slavery was touchy for her. In just a day or so, while she and the Doctor took shelter from the consuming mist, she had seen enough bowed heads and desolate eyes to last a lifetime – even if there were less than a dozen of them. _Basic slave race_. What did he mean by that? Grace watched the Ood that had given them their drinks store his tray in a little cabinet. She felt emotion emanating from it this time. It was faint, but she understood it as loneliness. No. Not just loneliness. Isolation.

Rose seemed equally upset by that word. "You've got slaves?"

"Don't start," Scooti said. "She's like one of that lot, Friends of the Ood."

"Well, maybe I am, yeah." Rose glanced at Grace, finding support, and went on. "Since when do humans need slaves?"

"If you want it drilled and mined so bad, why can't you do it yourself?" Grace added.

"But the Ood offer themselves," Danny responded. "If you don't give them orders, they just pine away and die."

Rose looked doubtfully at the Ood as it approached again. "Seriously? You like being ordered about?"

The Ood responded with a monotone, "It is all we crave."

"Why is that?" Grace asked it.

"We have nothing else in life."

"I used to think like that," Rose said. "Long time ago."

Danny and Scooti returned to their conversation, giving them odd looks. Elsewhere in the control room, the Doctor was talking, no doubt about how brilliant he was, but she barely heard him. She fixated on the Ood, like she had on the Doctor in the hall, and tried to dig further into its emotion – its one, solitary emotion.

When it departed, she was no closer to figuring it out. Surely it had thoughts. Surely it could feel. But why was it so faint?

"You okay?" Rose wondered.

Grace shrugged. "I don't like slavery."

"Neither do I."

Grace smiled. Rose was easy to get along with. She was _good_. She was kind. Like the Doctor, she also seemed to care about people, almost unconditionally.

But being close to people was strange for Grace. She had spent her whole life on the fringes of society, in both worlds. Unwanted. Unloved. And she accepted it. She didn't shy away from reality. Only now reality was much bigger – there was a whole universe, and the wonder that was the Doctor, and someone else her age to talk to.

"Rose…?" She fumbled for words, frowning.

"Yeah?"

"Are we friends?"

Rose gave her an odd look – she was getting a lot of those today – and then hugged her. Grace was usually against touching people, but Rose was easy. "Course we are."

"I've never had a friend before, you know, aside from the Doctor. Not sure he counts."

Rose pulled away, wrinkling her nose. "Yeah, bit of a weirdo, that one."

They went up to the console to rejoin the conversation. Grace stayed close to Rose, feeling a little protective of her first human friend. When they landed in her home, the Doctor warned Grace that Rose was prone to getting into all sorts of trouble.

Ida was talking to the Doctor. "This power source is ten miles below, through solid rock. Point 0. We're drilling down to try and find it."

It was about the planet, about whatever was keeping it from being drawn into the black hole. Ida and her crew were enthusiastic, almost manic, but the Doctor looked weary.

Flane spoke next. "It's giving off readings of over 90 Statts on the Blazen Scale."

She knew those terms. Could these people be from _her_ time?

Rose looked baffled, so Grace leaned in and whispered, "Big old scale to measure energy output, usually used to describe stars. Solar energy."

"And what's a normal, er, Statt?" Rose whispered back.

"Low tens. Never heard of anything higher."

Ida stared boldly at the Doctor. "It could revolutionize modern science."

Dog-tag man, also known as Mr. Jefferson, cut in, "We could use it to fuel the empire."

The Doctor pulled off his glasses, adding a dramatic flair to his statement. "Or start a war."

Toby had the grimmest voice of them all. He had been the one to check the rocket links when they first arrived. He was blonde and lanky, sort of reserved. His fear was palpable to Grace, magnified when he started talking. His own words were chilling him, right down to his soul. "It's buried beneath us. In the darkness, waiting."

"What's your job?" Rose asked, "Chief dramatist?"

The Doctor flashed a smiled, momentarily losing his seriousness.

"Well, whatever it is down there, it's not a natural phenomenon." Toby was dead serious. "This planet once supports life, aeons ago, before the human race had even learnt to walk."

The Doctor lost his humor. "I saw that lettering written on the wall, did you do that?"

Toby nodded, his fear ebbing. "I copied it from fragments we found unearthed by the drilling, but I can't translate it."

"No, neither can I." The Doctor glanced at his companions. "And that's saying something."

"And there was some form of civilization." Toby grew a little more anxious inside. "They buried something. Now, it's reaching out. Calling us in."

"And you came," the Doctor concluded.

Ida frowned. "How could we not?"

The Doctor sounded amused. "So, when it comes right down to it, why did you come here? Why did you do that? Why? I'll _tell_ you why. Because it was there. Brilliant!" He looked at the captain, grinning. "Excuse me. Zack, wasn't it?"

Flane nodded. "That's me."

"Just stand there 'cause I'm gonna hug you, is that alright?"

"Suppose so."

The Doctor approach. "Here we go. Coming in." He wrapped him in a big hug, smiling like he had won a prize. He sighed. "Ahh. Human beings. You are amazing." When he drew away, he clapped and smiled. "Thank you."

"Not at all," Flane responded, smiling himself.

"But apart from that, you're completely mad. You should pack your bags, get back on that ship, and fly for your lives." He lost his amusement, his affection, and looked at them all seriously.

Ida set her hip. "You can talk. How the hell did you get here?"

"Oh, I've got this… this ship… it's hard to explain, it just sort of appears."

"We can show you." Rose perked up. "We parked down the corridor from… uh, what's it called? Habitation area 3? Door, uh, 18 or something?"

Flane leveled his eyes on her. "Do you mean Storage 6?"

The Doctor nodded. "It was a bit of a cupboard, yeah." He noted the serious expressions, and frowned. "Storage 6? But you said… You said… You said Storage 5 to 8."

He turned and ran, and Rose followed.

Grace remained. She had a feeling she had missed something critical while she was ignoring the big talk they were all having. She wanted to follow them, she really did, but suddenly her ability became magnified. The Doctor had already left the room, but she could _see_ him.

She could feel him bobbing around, running away, filled with panic.

And then came the utter devastation. It rooted her. Something horrible had happened.

Flane ran his hand over his hair. "We lost Storage 6," he said to her.

Grace swallowed. "W-What does that mean?"

"It means whatever you came here in – it's gone."

She slumped into a nearby chair. This realization had been the devastation she felt in the Doctor, and rightly so. What did that mean for them? They were on a planet hovering around a black hole, and the only way out was through a thin strip of gravity. And the TARDIS was gone. But _how_ could it be gone?

When the Doctor returned, his distress became overwhelming. Rather than being the soothing force in the room, he was the antagonist. Somewhere inside, the presence returned.

The Doctor spoke rapidly.

"The ground gave way. My TARDIS must have fallen down into the heart of the planet. You've got robot drills heading the same way."

Flane answered him. "We can't divert the drilling."

The Doctor pursued him around the console. "But I need my ship! It's all I've got. Literally, the only thing."

"Doctor, we've only got the resources to dig one central shaft down to the power source and that's it. No diversions, no distractions, no exceptions. Your machine is lost. All I can do is offer you a lift, if we ever get to leave this place. And that is the end of it."

Ida followed. "I'll put you on the duty roster. We need someone in the laundry."

Rose came to sit beside Grace, staring uncertainly at the Doctor, and listening, but not really hearing anything. She was conflicted and afraid.

Grace took one of her hands, smiling. "Hey. Relax. I thought trouble was your specialty."

Rose snorted, and then shook her head. "Sorry. I'm supposed to be helping you out."

"We can help each other."

The room cleared. Ida and Flane departed, discussing something, and one at a time the others found a responsibility to take care of. The Doctor walked around the console a few times, working on what he should do with himself, and then he came to lean against it, near Grace and Rose. He took a deep breath and looked between them both.

"I've trapped you here."

"No, don't worry about us," Rose insisted.

The room rumbled.

"Okay." Rose stood up. "We're on a planet that shouldn't exist, underneath a black hole, and no way out. Yeah, I've changed my mind. Start worrying about me."

The Doctor hugged her. He was, perhaps, just as sensitive to emotion as Grace was. He was a decidedly good person, almost _too_ good. Grace was reminded of the people she had killed, including the Curator, and she wondered again what the Doctor would think of her if he ever found out. With his values, he would probably be disgusted.

Grace got up, too, and the Doctor tried to invite her to the hug. She stepped away from it. "I'm gonna go have a look around."

He frowned. "We can all go."

No. His head was too full. It was giving her a headache. She needed to put some distance between them, before the fireball overwhelmed her. "No, no. I'll be fine."

Rose pulled out of her hug and frowned. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just, you know, keep it up with the hugging. Good job. I'll be back."

As she pushed through the door, she heard the Doctor say to Rose, "I want to have another look at that language on the walls. Come on."


	38. Cloud of Fire

**Chapter 38.**

 **Cloud of Fire.**

Grace wandered the corridors, finding herself constantly aware of where her companions were. It was the tension. The Doctor was upset about the loss of his ship, and Rose was acutely afraid – of this place? Of the future? It was impossible to know. Grace only felt her like a warm breeze moving around, and the Doctor more like a cloud of fire. With the others, there was nothing until they were very close to her. It seemed they were used to this eerie setting. How long had they been here, to feel as empty as they did inside?

She was drawn time and time again to the room with the text on the walls, but the Doctor was there, and she didn't want him to know why she was so interested. She didn't even know. The longer she wandered, the more the presence stirred.

Grace got the awful feeling that there was something below them, like Ida and Toby had said. Some kind of monster. While she had felt like she was drifting when they first arrived, now it was more like they were sitting on top of something, and it was shifting. Like sand. Like dust.

She opened a doorway into another room – like the one with the lettering, but smaller – and the intercom announced it. But when the announcement should have ended, static came through the speakers, and it spoke again.

"He is awake."

Grace stopped. She stopped breathing. She stopped blinking. She stared at the little speaker box and frowned. "What did you say?"

It was silent.

And then came the fear.

One of the crew was terribly, impossibly afraid.

Grace could not pinpoint who it was. She felt it permeate the whole place, so loud in her head that it seemed everyone would be able to sense it.

She looked for him. It was hard navigating the hallways, but the urgency grew.

He was so afraid. He was petrified.

Grace started running. She slammed through doorways until she found the dorms. As she grew closer she saw flashes of red, like pain streaking over her vision. Something rumbled inside. The presence coiled itself up and her veins began to flash bright green.

She pushed through the last door, into a room, and found Toby looking at her.

He was panting. He jumped so hard that he fell out of his chair.

"W-W-What _are_ you?" he demanded. "What do you want?"

Grace saw a reflection of herself in the mirror, and staggered back into the hallway. The Doctor had told her when they first met that her eyes had glowed, but suddenly she was seeing it – green rings encircling her pupils. The large veins in her face flashed the same color, like an emergency beacon. She looked afraid – afraid of herself.

Not human. Clearly not human.

"Sorry!" She slammed his door shut again, deciding that he was not in danger, or if he was, it was no longer worth it to be in there. She fled down the hall, looking for sanctuary.

She turned a corner and crashed into the Doctor.

He took one look at her and wrapped her in a tight hug.

Grace tried to squirm away, but he held on, and the contact ate away at her panic. He was a little startled, a little concerned, but the brightest parts of him were calm. That fiery cloud had faded. Grace let it wash over her.

Slowly, surely, she relaxed.

"It's okay." He stroked her hair, appearing bewildered, and drew one of her hands up. "Look at that. Look at _that_."

What was he seeing? Something he recognized?

Grace shrunk under his scrutiny.

"No, no. It's alright." He ran one finger down her arm, to the crook of her elbow, smiling so big his cheeks crinkled up. "That is… beautiful. Some kind of fear reaction. Like a little homing beacon." He grew more serious, moving one hand to her face and cupping her cheek. She could see the bright green rings reflected in his eyes. "Look at you. Sometimes I forget. No, I don't forget. But sometimes I stop thinking about it… what you might be. But look at that. Look at you. You are… stunning."

Grace could not have understood his response if he was not so close. But _this_ close, with his hand on her face, and the other touched her arm, she could not only feel what he felt, but experience it. She could understand it. She could read it.

He was enamored. He saw the veins, the color in particular, and what popped in his head was beauty. He loved it. It fascinated him.

And she didn't need to know any of that to read his face. He looked at her like she was the only person in the world. Just for a brief second, it was the two of them – perhaps the last of their respective species – and he was just gazing.

He tried to kiss her.

Grace broke the contact.

She stepped away, finding the veins relenting. Whatever had stirred in her was settling down.

It was not a fear response, as the Doctor said. She got a different impression from it. It, and the presence, were there for attack. So she didn't want to touch him. The thought of him bursting away into dust made her sick.

He looked a little burned by the rejection. He scratched his head, cleared his throat, and looked up and down the hall. "Right. We should get back to the common area."

Grace nodded. She followed him back, saying nothing, and wished she was anywhere but trapped on a planet with him. When the Curator begged at her feet, the only thing she could think was that she couldn't let the Doctor find out what she was, because she needed to stay with him. But now that priority changed. She saw it in him. She saw it budding, felt it pouring out. Whatever he felt, it seemed, he felt very severely. Joy. Anger. Pain. Love. He felt it more powerfully than any person. And she was lying to him.

She was dangerous. She could hurt him.

All the way to the door, it seemed his mind lingered on the sting she had given him. But there was something else – something shrouded.

He turned just before he opened it, appearing serious.

"I know you can feel emotions, but I'm asking you not to."

Grace swallowed, horrified. Did he know she was poking around?

"I can feel it." He touched his forehead. "I can feel it every time. Humans may not be able to, but I can. What I want to know is how much can you see? How much do you pick up?"

Grace stuttered. "Um, what you feel. I'm getting better at it. Today it's just getting… easier."

"No… It's more than that. More than feelings."

"Sometimes I can… I get glimpses. Through people's eyes."

"Through mine?"

"Yes."

He seemed disturbed by that. He put a hand on the door and repeated his request. "As your friend, I'm asking you to stay out of my head."

"I'll try."

Grace went to sit with Rose in the common area. The Doctor sat across from them, eyeing her until Rose frowned at him. She was curious. Grace suddenly wondered if Rose felt her listening in as well, or if it was just something unique to the Doctor.

Ida walked past them, talking into the radio on her wrist. "Zack, we got a problem?"

Zack came back immediately. "No more than usual. Got the Scarlet System burning up. Might be worth a look."

"You might want to see this," Ida said to them. "Moment in history."

She pulled a lever on the other side of the room, and the ceiling opened up. The black hole was there again, with ribbons of red flowing into it.

"There, on the edge." Ida pointed up. "That red cloud. That used to be the Scarlet System. Home to the Pallushi. A mighty civilization spanning a billion years, disappearing forever. Their planets and suns consumed."

A moment after those words hit her, the candles appeared inside.

Snuffing out.

One breath at a time.

Billions of them.

Before it could overwhelm her, the presence grew and quelled them. It went silent. Grace dropped an elbow to the table, so relieved that she gasped. The Doctor cocked a curious eyebrow at her, but was soon distracted by the moment in history.

And a moment it was.

The scarlet cloud was sucked into the black hole, and the lives that were being extinguished filled her up, but they were quieted by the presence. It was protecting her.

When it was gone, and the black hole rested again, Ida went on.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have witnessed its passing." She reached for the lever.

The Doctor sat up. "No, could you leave it open? Just for a bit. I won't go mad, I promise."

"How would you know?" Ida challenged.

He gave an adorable half-smirk at that.

Ida looked away. "Scooti, check the lockdown. Jefferson, sign off the airlock seals for me."

Rose leaned in, lowering her voice. "I've seen films and things, yeah? They say black holes are like gateways to another universe."

"Not that one." The Doctor had his arms folded on the table, and he gazed upward at the monstrous thing. "It just eats."

"A long way from home."

The Doctor leaned in, noting her sadness. "Go that way, turn right, keep going for, erm… about 500 years and you'll reach Earth."

Rose pulled her phone out – an archaic device – and sighed, "No signal. That's the first time we've gone out of range. Mind you, even if I could… What would I tell her?" She leaned in, setting her phone down. "Can you build another TARDIS?"

The Doctor sounded a little dreamy now. "They were grown, not built. And with my home planet gone, we're kind of stuck."

 _Grown, not built_. Grace wondered about that. She really wondered about it. If she could touch his skin at that moment, she imagined she would get a glimpse of exactly what he meant. But she kept her hands to herself, and was left to wonder. He said the oddest things sometimes.

"Well, it could be worse." Rose looked around them. "This lot said they'd give us a lift."

"And then what?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't know. Find a planet. Get a job. You live a life, same as the rest of the universe."

What a terrible fate. Grace only just escaped that sort of life. This was only her third real trip with the Doctor, and giving up the whole rest of the universe just seemed… impossible. She knew now how much was out there. She wanted to see everything. She wanted to discover new forms of life, and watch them blossom.

The Doctor seemed equally upset by the idea. "I'd have to settle down. Get a house or something. A proper house with… doors and things. Carpets. Me, living in a house! Now, that… That… That is terrifying."

"You'd have to get a mortgage," Rose teased.

"No."

"Yes."

"I'm dying. That's it, I am dying. It is all over."

"What about me?" Rose laughed. "I'd have to get one, too. I don't know, could be the same one. We could both… I don't know, share. Or not. Whatever. I don't know. All sorts of…"

He was watching her very seriously. He cut in, "Anyway."

Rose looked up again, avoiding his eyes. "We'll see."

Grace saw what was happening here. Rose was looking at the Doctor, but not _just_ looking. She was admiring. She had love blossoming in her heart. Love. Real love. And though she was avoiding anything to do with his mind, Grace could tell by his reaction the Doctor was wondering about it. She would be so good for him. Rose was kind. She was smart. She was human. Everything the Doctor loved. He could have her, and forget about their encounter in the hallway, and the three of them could continue exploring the universe together.

His thoughts seemed to have taken a different path.

"I promised Jackie I would always take you back home."

"Everyone leaves home in the end," Rose murmured.

"Not to end up stuck here."

"Yeah, but stuck with you, that's not so bad."

He looked at her, a little caution, a little possibility, in his eyes. "Yeah?"

She smiled back at him. "Yes."

Grace loved the little smile on his face. He was beautiful, even when he was sad, even when he was feeling guilty. Rose was the same way. Sweet and kind, and so alive inside. She was glad to have them as friends, glad they had stumbled into her corrupted reality, and glad she had set it all right in the end.

The phone on the table rang.

Rose answered it, listened a moment, and then chucked it on the floor.

She swallowed, looking at the Doctor, and then Grace. "Uh, we have a problem."


	39. An Eternity Ago

**Chapter 39.**

 **An Eternity Ago.**

It was on. Something strange was happening. It was the trouble Rose claimed was her specialty, and Grace was finally seeing her blossom under pressure. She hopped right up with the Doctor and they stormed the hallways, searching for the Ood habitat. Something had been reported as 'going wrong' there and the Doctor insisted they would find answers in the Ood.

He ran down the stairs like he owned the place, greeting Danny. "Evening!"

"Only us," Rose announced.

Danny was standing at a sort of console, on a platform above a room with well over a dozen Ood in it. They were all sitting silently on benches. Danny turned at the greeting and gave a little wave. "The mysterious trio. How are you, then? Settling in?"

The Doctor went up behind him. "Yeah, sorry, straight to business. The Ood, how do they communicate? I mean, with each other?"

Grace stood at the railing, trying again to feel something other than isolation from the Ood. Even with so many of them in the same place, it was cold down there.

"Oh, just empaths," Danny responded. "There's a low-level telepathic field connecting them. Not that that does them much good. They're basically a herd race, like cattle."

The Doctor looked at Grace. "Are you picking up anything from them? Do you feel them?"

She kept her eyes on the Ood. "No. I felt something earlier, with one of them, but those just feel… empty. Nothing. I feel nothing."

He frowned, his eyes scanning the group. "The telepathic field, can it pick up messages?"

"'Cause I was having dinner," Rose cut in, "And one of the Oods said something, well, odd."

"Hmm. An odd Ood."

Rose touched her pocket, where she had put the remains of her broken telephone. "And then I got something else on my uh… communicator thing."

"Well, be fair." Danny reached behind her, mashing a button. "We've got whole star systems burning up around us." He stepped toward the stairs, his eyes lingering on Grace. "There's all sorts of stray transmissions. Probably nothing. And what were you talking about? Feeling something from the Ood?"

The Doctor responded before she could. "Never mind that."

Danny frowned at Grace, and went on, "Look, if there was something wrong, it would show. We monitor the telepathic field. It's the only way to look after them. They're so stupid. They don't even tell us when they're ill."

Grace disliked his tone. She thought of Henry again, and the few days she had been allowed to spend with him and his daughter before the Doctor told her he would be killed. Referring to sentient beings in that way made the presence magnify.

It reacted to her. She reacted to it.

The Doctor stepped up to the console. "Monitor the field, that's this thing."

"Yeah." Danny had his eyes on his clipboard. "But like I said, it's a low-level telepathy. They only register Basic 5."

As he spoke, the numbers on the screen went up.

"Well, that's not Basic 5." The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "10. 20." He looked back. "They've gone up to Basic 30."

"But they can't."

"Doctor." Rose grabbed him. "The Ood."

Grace looked down at the rows of Ood, who were all sitting straight up now. They turned in sync toward the stairs, and looked up at the loft.

"What does Basic 30 mean?" Rose asked.

Danny was fighting with the computer. "Well, it means that they're shouting, screaming inside their heads."

The Doctor got a hand on Grace, pulling her up to the railing with him. "Or something is shouting at them. Grace, can you feel anything now?"

She wasn't sure that she wanted to.

But it was never really a choice.

She focused on one of them, on its slanted eyes looking up at her, and felt a storm gathering in its head. Its emotions, once absent, suddenly burst into the air. Fear. Pain. Loneliness. And most powerfully, most strikingly, came the rage. It was pure. It was singing. It was louder than all the voices in the room put together.

Grace staggered back and struck something hard. She hit the ground. The presence settled over her and eased the feeling, but it wasn't enough.

She was drifting, leaving, departing from herself. She felt a thick fog envelop every part, every thought, every emotion. She was cold. She was alone. Grace became lost, just a little light in an endless cloudy room.

But _he_ pierced it at last.

He had her face in his hands, on his knees in front of her, staring at her intently. When she looked at him, she could see the green reflected in his eyes again, and it was impossible to honor his wishes. He was touching her, and his uncertainty bled through his palms.

"It's alright," he whispered urgently. "Come on. We have to get up now. Come on."

Grace put her hands over his and shook her head. "I can't."

"Yes, you can. Come on."

From below them, the Ood spoke in sync, "And you will worship him."

Grace felt another jolt of rage, accompanied by something else. A voice. It was deep, and smooth, and it ground into her head like a drill.

 _I am awake. And you will worship me._

She flinched.

The Doctor held on, ducking his head to keep their eyes in line. "What is it? What do you see? What do you feel?"

"The voice." It came again, with the same message. "It's so… angry."

He scanned her face. Rose appeared beside him. His voice was low and urgent. "Grace, listen to me. You have to shut it out. Shut it all out."

"What's happening to her?" Danny demanded.

"She's a telepath!" The Doctor snapped at him. "Do you have anything, uh, anything to block the field? Any kind of cover to keep the Ood from communicating?"

"We put them in masks but-" Danny got closer. "What do you mean? What's happening to her eyes? And her arms? Is she an _alien_?"

"Get the mask!" The Doctor focused on her again, still holding her face. He seemed to be at a loss. "What can I do?"

Grace had a hard time holding on to his voice. The announcement came again and again. It said the same thing over and over. Someone slipped something over her ears, but the sound persisted inside, even when the whole world was shut out.

The Doctor pulled the mask away. "It's not working!"

"What's wrong with her?" Rose had a hand on her as well.

Grace shut her eyes as tightly as she could, hoping to press it out, whatever it was. She felt it now, resting in the core of the planet, reaching out to her and settling in her head. The presence abandoned her. It came full force and tapped into every thought, every feeling. Briefly, it felt like she was floating above herself. The voice rumbled inside.

And then it ebbed for just a moment, long enough to let her open her eyes. The Doctor was looking at her, brown orbs reflecting green, and she recalled the memory she had shared with him. She had seen his longing, watched him search in vain through the mist for a manifestation of it, and then she had touched his face and brought it out. His tranquility was incredible. It was the best thing she had ever felt. It was the happiest she ever was. His happiness was his best quality.

Because when the Doctor felt something, it was more powerful than anything.

She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight, pouring all of her energy into him. She let him consume her thoughts, and pressed on his memories.

The happiest of them.

She saw a woman smiling warmly, and it bubbled into her chest as pure joy.

She said a name Grace could not recognize or remember. The influence of the voice was crushed in the wake of his sudden sadness. He had incredible depth. It was like diving into an ocean. She saw that face, and at the same time she felt pained, and loved, and so happy that her chest pinched up. It took her breath away.

She realized she was looking at his mother. She realized this was what it felt like to know that you were wanted, to feel a mother looking back at you with nothing but unconditional love.

When the voice was gone, she released him.

He fell back, staring at her with eyes as wide as dinner plates, completely baffled. He had a tear on his cheek. His words came out in a whisper. "How did you…?"

Rose looked between them, and rubbed Grace's arms. "Are you okay? What was that?"

"I just…" Grace wasn't sure how to describe it. She didn't know what it was, really. It was a memory, but how had she known it was there? How had she known how to access it? "I'm sorry." She tried to get up, but her legs were jelly. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I know you said-"

He got back into a crouch and grabbed one of her hands, staring intently, "No, Grace, how did you do that? No one can do that to me. _No one_."

"Let her go," Rose barked.

He released her, but continued his staring. He was disturbed.

He was looking at her like that again – like he was disgusted. He had done the same thing in the TARDIS when she told him how she felt about Polly's future.

Grace leaned on Rose to get up, stepping carefully away from the Doctor.

He continued his staring, and then tucked his thoughts away. He was very good at that. He shook himself and ran down the stairs, going to take a look at the Ood.

Rose whispered to Grace, "What was that? What happened?"

"I… I was in his memories."

Rose's expression darkened. "Is he…? Are you okay?"

"I think so. I think it saved me." Grace was not the type to hug. She barely touched other people. The Doctor was the closest she came to an intimate relationship. But her insides felt strange and there was a big empty spot where the voice had been in her head, and she just needed a hug. She wrapped her arms around Rose and whimpered, holding back tears. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Rose held onto her. "It's okay."

Rose was warm again, not quite as intense as the Doctor. It was more like a brief wind in the past, rolling through the fields by Henry's plantation.

Suddenly, the whole room heaved under them.

A robotic voice came on the intercom.

"Emergency hull breach. Emergency hull breach."

Danny screamed into his radio. Someone responded. The base was open.

The Doctor came back up the stairs and opened the door, ushering them through. "Get out! Let's go! _Run_!"

They made a frantic run through the base, to the control room. They were forced to stop in the hall, with all the other crew members. The door was not opening.

The Doctor was shouting. "Everyone alright? What happened? What was it?"

Above them, the voice came. "Breach sealed."

Mr. Jefferson responded, gasping for air. "We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."

"That wasn't a quake," The Doctor said. "What caused it?"

Flane spoke over the radio. "We've lost sections 11 to 13. Everyone alright?"

Jefferson spoke to his wrist. "We've got everyone here except Scooti. Scooti, report." Silence. "Scooti Manista, this is an order, report."

Flane came back. "She's alright. I've picked up her biochip. She's in Habitation 3. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious. But how 'bout that, eh? We survived."

Jefferson glanced at his wrist. "Habitation 3. Come on. I don't often say this, but I think we could all do with a drink." He headed back down the hall. "Come on."

The Doctor crouched by the last arrival. Toby. "What happened?"

He stuttered. "I don't know. I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air."

Rose helped him up. "Come on, up you get. Come and have some Protein One."

The Doctor stood up. "You've gone native."

"Oi, don't knock it, it's nice. Protein One with just a dash of Three."

Rose walked the man down the hallway, following the others. Grace tried to go after her, but the Doctor stepped in her path. He had his hands in his duster pockets and he looked at the floor.

Grace tried to start, "Doctor-"

"What you did back there…" He glanced up, managing a serious expression along with incredulous eyes. "It was incredible. And impossible. I don't have an easy mind. Not at all. It's very complicated, actually. I understand how it happened in New Fountain. I was open to it, like a wound. But this time… how did you do that?"

"I… I don't know."

"Don't give me that. You know more than you're telling."

Grace didn't like being questioned like this. His intense stare made it hard to lie. So she went with the truth. "I just… I knew from last time… what it felt like when you remember. You were happy. I wanted that… I wanted that instead of… the voice."

"But _how_? How did you do it?" He raised his hands, cautious at first, and placed them on her cheeks, just like before. "And how did you…? How did you find…?"

"Your happiest memory."

Grace was captivated by his eyes. He was so intent. He was so curious. He was so sad. She knew deep down he wanted that memory back, but he was also afraid – afraid of what she could do, of what she might be. But that fear didn't keep him away. It did the opposite. He drew closer.

His voice was barely audible. "I haven't been able to remember her face since… Grace… It's like you… It's like you just reach right inside and…"

He leaned in, and instead of trying to kiss her this time, he rested his forehead against hers. He shut his eyes. His hands slid from her face to her shoulders and he exhaled. It was impossible to keep from feeling what he felt – and what he felt was beautiful.

"Can you show me again?"

Grace did her best to focus.

She reached out again, feeling the warm tendrils of his consciousness wrapping around her. It was complicated, just like he said, but also simple. He was that fiery cloud she had tracked in the compound earlier – he was burning at the center, with emotions unlike anything else. It was what made him so special, what made him so unique. His compassion, his rage, his sadness, his loneliness. He wanted so much. He wished for so much.

She thought of the woman again, and the memory came back to life.

The Doctor drew in a gasp, and smiled, and another tear dropped down his cheek. He squeezed her shoulders and laughed.

"I was eight years old… basically newborn for a Time Lord. And that was the last time I ever saw her face." He released her shoulders and wiped the tear from his cheek. "It feels like an eternity ago."

Grace looked up, curious. "Why was that the last time?"

He smiled at her again, and ran the back of his index finger down the line of her eye. The way he was looking at her was impossible. It touched her soul.

"We should get back to them. Crisis and all."

She swallowed, reluctant to leave this intimate moment behind. But he was right.

Her thoughts lingered on the woman, and the fire burning inside the Doctor. She tried to convince herself that she was going to tell him what she had done, that he deserved to know, because he trusted her, but then she thought of never seeing that look in his eyes again. She couldn't take that. He was the only person in the universe who looked at her like that.


	40. I Shall Walk in the Light

**Chapter 40.**

 **I Shall Walk in the Light.**

In the common room, it was chaos. Everyone was talking at once. The Doctor went right to the middle of it, as always, and Grace hung back. The only missing person, Scooti, was not where they expected her to be. Her friends were upset. Grace let her mind wander, searching the compound for another flash of fear, but she felt the angry thing below prodding at her and she withdrew.

She caught a little sadness from the Doctor.

He was looking up.

Half a second later, he said, "I've found her."

Grace joined him in the center, gazing up at the body floating in space. It was Scooti. Her hair was splayed out around her head. Her eyes were wide open. She was dead, cold and empty inside, and for a moment Grace struggled to place her grief. It was not coming from anyone else this time. Her stomach coiled up. Seeing a person floating like that, ascending toward the black hole, was terrible.

The Doctor was profoundly upset. "Sorry. I'm so sorry."

Mr. Jefferson reported her death to the captain. For the first time he spoke with respect.

Ida could not look away from the body. "She was 20… 20 years old." She pulled the lever, and the ceiling slowly closed above them. Grace was released from the horrible sight, but it lingered in her head. It lingered in everyone.

Mr. Jefferson spoke softly. "For how should man die better than facing fearful odds. For the ashes of his father, and the temples of his gods?"

The humming beneath them halted.

Ida looked up. "It's stopped."

"What was that?" Rose asked. "What was it?"

"The drill." The Doctor responded.

"We've stopped drilling. We've made it." Ida managed a little excitement despite the horror they had all witnesses. "Point 0. I'm going down."

"I'm going with you," the Doctor announced.

Grace felt a tremor of fear. She had felt what was down there, and she didn't want the Doctor anywhere near it. "No. You can't."

He looked at her, thoughtful, but followed Ida anyway. Grace glanced at Rose, but she was already after them. Was everyone suddenly insane?

The mineshaft was the hottest part of the compound. While the Doctor got into his space suit and tried to convince Flane that he should be allowed to go, Grace tried to appeal to Rose.

"It's dangerous down there. Whatever I felt… it's angry."

Rose frowned. _Hard_. "I know."

The Doctor approached, and they both turned toward him.

He examined his sleeve. "Oxygen, nitro balance, gravity. It's ages since I wore one of these."

Rose managed a smile. "I want that spacesuit back in one piece. You got that?"

He nodded. "Yes, sir."

"It's funny, 'cause people back home think that space travel is gonna be all… whizzing about and teleports, anti-gravity. But it's not, is it? It's tough." She lost her smile, and seemed on the verge of tears, thinking of what might happen to the Doctor down there.

His eyes hardened. "I'll see you later."

Rose smiled. "Not if I see you first." She kissed his helmet.

He offered Grace a hug, but she turned away, frowning. "I still don't want you to go."

"No last words for a wayward space traveler?"

Grace wondered how long she would be able to feel him once he got started heading below the surface. She knew the moment his fiery cloud of emotion disappeared, she would feel a little emptier. She hadn't been without it in a while. She got choked up on the idea, and wrapped him in a hug to get it to leave her alone.

"I swear, you two are impossible." He drew away, smiling at them both. "But, yeah, how cool do I look?"

"I swear you were supposed to be doing something," Rose said, grinning.

"Oh, right. Big hole in the ground. Don't wander off."

He entered the elevator, and Grace and Rose stood outside the door, watching him and Ida as they stood waiting. A countdown started over the intercom. Grace felt a lump growing in her throat. Rose shared her worries.

It began to sink. The Doctor waved at them, giving a last smile as he descended.

Down and down it went, through the ground, rattling and shaking. Grace held onto him as long as she could, wondering if he would object to the intrusion, and then realizing it didn't matter. She just wanted to make sure he was safe.

But as he got toward the bottom, as the elevator slowed, his fire became faint.

He was there, but barely.

Grace could feel his curiosity blooming.

Rose nudged her shoulder. "Can you…? Uh, I don't really know how to ask."

"I can feel him, sort of. Way down there."

"That makes me feel better." Rose crossed her arms, bouncing from one foot to the other. "Just tell me if something happens. You'll know, right?"

"I hope so."

Rose grabbed one of the radios, "Don't forget to breathe. Breathing is good."

Flane narrowed his eyes at her. "Rose, stay off the coms."

"No chance."

Suddenly, everything shook.

Rose was frantic. "Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?"

Grace felt a jolt of fear from him, but it faded quickly.

"Ida, report to me." Flane looked between them. " _Doctor_?"

His voice came back through the speaker, distorted by the distance. "It's all right. We've made it. Heading out of the capsule now."

Rose gave an audible sigh of relief. She paused a moment to catch her breath, and then took up the speaker again. "What's it like down there?"

Grace felt uncertainty.

"It's hard to tell. Some sort of cave. Cavern. It's massive."

Ida spoke. "Well, this should help. Gravity globe."

Silence.

Seconds passed.

"That's…" Ida sounded mystified. Grace could not feel her presence. "That's… Oh, my god. That's beautiful."

The Doctor spoke. "Rose… You can tell Toby… we've found his civilization."

Rose leaned over to talk to the blonde in the corner. "Oi, Toby, sounds like you've got plenty of work."

He responded in a few stutters. "Good. Good. Good."

"Concentrate now, people." Flane came over the intercom. "Keep on the mission. Ida, what about the power source?"

Ida reported. "We're close. Energy signature indicates north-northwest. Are you getting pictures up there?"

"There's too much interference. We're in your hands."

Ida sighed. "Well, we've come this far. There's no turning back."

The Doctor groaned. "Oh, did you have to? No turning back? That's almost as bad as 'nothing can possibly go wrong' or 'this is gonna be the best Christmas Walford's ever had.'"

Grace glanced at Rose, wondering what that meant, and Rose shrugged it off.

"Have you finished?" Ida wondered.

His voice came a little perturbed. "Yeah. Finished."

Grace tried to focus on the Doctor, to figure out where he was going, and what he was feeling, but he was steadily disappearing. Rose was talking to Mr. Jefferson about the walls – or something – but the conversation was lost on Grace. She could feel the angry beast again. It was down there waiting. What if the Doctor walked right into it?

The Doctor on the radio made her stir.

"We've found something. Looks like metal, like some sort of seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be 'trap door.' Not a good word, trap door. Never met a trap door I liked."

Ida said, "The edge is covered with those symbols."

Zack came back. "Do you think it opens?"

The Doctor sounded disturbed. "That's what trap doors tend to do."

"Trap door doesn't do it justice." Ida sounded out of breath. "It's massive, Zack. About 30 feet in diameter."

"Any way of opening it?"

"Don't know. I can't see any sort of mechanism."

The Doctor cut in. "I suppose that's the writing. It would tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation."

Zack brought the conversation back to the people at the elevator. "Toby, did you get anywhere with decoding it?"

Rose spoke to the blonde, who had buried his head in his hands by now. "Toby, they need to know. That lettering, does it make any sort of sense."

His voice was grim. "I know what it says."

"Then tell them."

"When did you work that out?" Mr. Jefferson demanded.

"It doesn't matter, just tell them!"

Toby stood, and looked at them, with black symbols all over his face. His eyes were blood red – as red as Grace's were green. He spoke in the same voice that had been in her head, and the sound of it made her feel cold inside.

"These are the words of the Beast. And he has woken. He is the heart that beats in the darkness. He is the blood that will never cease. And now he will rise."

Grace stepped in front of Rose, Mr. Jefferson trained his gun on Toby, and the woman who was with them nearly fell over the stairs trying to get away. If he got any close to them, Grace would not hesitate. She could feel the blackness emanating from him – the hatred, the anger, the primordial hunger. He was not a person anymore.

Mr. Jefferson had his finger on the trigger. "Officer, you will stand down. Stand down!"

The Doctor came desperately over the radio. "What is it? What's he done? What's happening? Rose, what's going on? _Grace_?"

Mr. Jefferson kept talking. "Officer, you've compromised security. You will stand down and be confined. Immediately!"

Toby cocked his head at him. "Mr. Jefferson, tell me, sir… did your wife ever forgive you?"

His voice got low. "I don't know what you mean."

"Let me tell you a secret," Toby went on, merciless. "She never did."

Mr. Jefferson began to stutter. "Officer, you will stand down and be confined."

Toby lowered his chin defiantly. "Or what?"

"Or under the strictures of Condition Red, I am authorized to shoot you."

"But how many can you kill?"

His eyes began to burn red hot, and the symbols on his face flew away, lodging in the Ood that stood nearby. Grace grabbed Rose and urged her closer to the console.

The voices of the Ood combined, creating an eerie monologue.

"We are the legion of the Beast."

The Doctor was still screaming over the radio, trying to get someone to tell him what was happening. Finally, Grace could feel him again. Fear. Uncertainty.

The Ood held out their translation devices and spoke again.

"The legion shall be many and the legion shall be few."

Rose whispered into the radio. "It's the Ood."

Mr. Jefferson spoke to his wrist. "Sir, we have contamination of the livestock."

Rose spoke over him. "Doctor, I don't know what it is. It's like they're possessed."

Grace added over her shoulder, "I can feel it. Something… inside them."

The Ood went on, relentless, "He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time. Some may call him Abbadon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan or Lucifer… the king of despair, the Deathless Prince. The Bringer of Night. And these are the words that shall set him free."

Grace and Rose backed toward the door as the Ood advanced on them, holding their glowing orbs out threateningly, their voice forming a terrible chorus.

"I am become manifest. I shall walk in the light. And my legions will swarm across worlds."

One of them flung their orb at them. Grace pushed Rose out of the way. It hit the ground and made a terrible buzzing sound, and the chanting went on.

"I am the sin and the temptation and the desire. I am the pain and the loss and the death of hope."

The world shook around them. Grace and Rose struggled with the door, but it resisted them. The Ood drew ever closer.

"I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more!"


	41. I See You

**Chapter 41.**

 **I See You.**

The Ood were too close. It was about to be over, before it had even really begun. Rose struggled with the door, whimpering. Her fear permeated the air.

Grace shoved Mr. Jefferson out of the way, feeling the presence bubble up as her decision was made. She was not going to die here, and she wasn't going to let Rose die here. Rose had been kind of her. She was her only friend in the world, other than the Doctor. And he needed her so much. She was not going to let this happen.

She didn't even touch them.

She spread her fingers and thrust her hand in their direction, as she had with the museum guards, and where there had been Ood before, there was nothing but dust remaining. They faded, their lives extinguished, three candles snuffed out – and it felt good. It felt right.

Rose gasped. "Grace… how did you…?"

"It doesn't matter!" Grace turned, grabbing her with the same hand she had used to obliterate the Ood and directing her toward the stairs. "Try to contact the Doctor!"

Rose shot down the stairs and grabbed the radio.

Mr. Jefferson turned his gun on Grace. "What are you?"

She almost raised her hand again.

And then it struck her.

She backed away, startled by her own reaction. Inside, the presence was ready to strike. But why was she? He had done nothing to her. He was just scared.

"I… I…"

Rose turned back and shouted. "Leave her alone! She just saved your life!"

Mr. Jefferson waited, pointing that gun, and Grace stared down the barrel.

Rose dropped the radio and came halfway up the steps. She grabbed Grace by the hand, fearless, and stepped in front of her. "If you want to shoot her, you have to shoot me. If you don't want to do that, put down your stupid gun. This isn't helping anything!"

Finally, he lowered it, but he continued to watch her.

Grace followed Rose back down the steps, with no time to consider that she had almost killed that man, and even less time to worry that Rose now knew what she could do.

Rose spoke into the radio. "Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me? Doctor, Ida, are you there?"

Nothing.

The door opened.

Grace braced herself to attack again, but it was only Danny. He was panicked.

"It's me! It's only me! But they're coming. It's the Ood. They've gone mad."

"How many?" Grace came halfway up the steps.

"All of them!" Danny gasped, his voice breaking. "All 50."

Mr. Jefferson went to the door. "Danny, out of the way. Out of the way!"

"But they're armed!" Danny pleaded. "It's the interface device. I don't know how, but they're using it as a weapon."

Mr. Jefferson opened the door, assisted by the other woman – Grace did not even know her name – and the Ood were waiting outside. One of them struck his orb against the head of the woman, producing a shriek. It killed her. Jefferson started shooting, mowing them down. Danny slammed the door shut as soon as he could.

It was chaos.

The computer system made rapid announcements, sealing different doors.

Grace joined Rose by the radio, listening for anything from the Doctor.

Jefferson was reporting to Flane on his wrist radio. "I've got very little ammunition, sir. How about you?"

"All I've got is a bolt-gun with, uh, all of one bolt. I could take out a grand total of one Ood. Fat lot of good that is."

"Given the emergency, I recommend strategy nine."

There was a pause. "Strategy nine agreed. Right, we need to get everyone together. Rose, Grace, what about Ida and the Doctor? Any word?"

Rose was on the verge of tears. "I can't get a reply. Just nothing. I keep trying, but it's…"

His voice came through.

Grace whipped around.

"No, sorry. I'm fine. Still here!"

Rose released a worried breath. "You could have said, you stupid…" The radio crackled.

"Whoa! Careful!" He sounded fine. "Anyway, it's both of us, me and Ida. Hello! But the seal opened up. It's gone. All we've got left is this chasm."

Zack asked, "How deep is it?"

"Can't tell. Looks like it goes down forever."

"The pit is open. That's what the voice said." Rose looked at Grace for confirmation.

Zack must have been shaking his head from the control room. "But there's nothing. I mean, there's nothing coming out?"

The Doctor sounded _almost_ sure. "No, no, no. No sign of the Beast."

"It said Satan." Rose was uncertain.

"Come on, Rose. Keep it together." The Doctor took a breath. "Is everyone alright up there, by the way? How are things? Is Grace there?"

Grace leaned over to talk, "Present."

Rose smiled at her, and then spoke to the Doctor. "Is there no such thing?"

"What does that mean?" Grace looked at the gathered, curious about this word that Rose was so caught up on. "Satan? Is that like Santa?"

She frowned. "It's like, uh, the devil." She spoke into the speaker again. "Doctor, tell me there's no such thing."

Zack interrupted. "Ida, I recommend that you withdraw immediately."

"But we've come all this way."

"Okay, that was an order. Withdraw! When that thing opened, the whole planet shifted. One more inch and we fall into the black hole, so this thing stops right now."

Ida continued her argument. "But it's not much better up there with the Ood."

Zack snapped. "I'm initiating strategy nine so I need the two of you back up top immediately."

The radio went silent.

A few long moments passed.

And then the Doctor came back. "We're coming back."

Rose smiled. "Best news I've heard all day."

Jefferson cocked his gun, drawing the attention back to Toby. He had lost his tattoos. He squirmed across the floor to escape the gun, appearing terrified.

"What are you doing?" Rose demanded.

"He's infected. He brought that thing on board. You saw it."

"Are you just pointing that thing at everyone now? Is that what you're gonna do?"

He raised the gun to Grace again, shouting, "If necessary! How do I know she didn't have anything to do with it? You saw her eyes!"

Grace stiffened, grateful, again, when Rose stepped in front of her.

"You're gonna have to shoot me, if _necessary_. So what's it gonna be?"

Mr. Jefferson seemed to consider it, and then, again, dropped his weapon.

Rose glanced back at Grace, nodding, a little shaky, and then motioned to Toby. "Look at his face. Whatever it was, it's gone. It passed into the Ood. You saw it happen. He's clean."

"Any sign of trouble, I shoot them." Mr. Jefferson looked at Grace, narrowing his eyes. "Both of them."

Rose turned as he passed, keeping him away from Grace, and then she turned to her. "You alright?"

Grace nodded, tracking Jefferson as he departed. He had quite a temper. He was very happy with his guns. If he kept it up, he was going to get someone hurt – and it might be him.

Rose went to Toby. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, stuttering. "Yeah. I don't know."

Grace joined her, never turning her back on Jefferson. "Can you remember anything? Did you hear a voice? Did you feel something?"

"Just… it was so angry. It was fury and rage and death." He looked around, getting a jolt as the realization struck him. "It was him. It was the Devil."

Rose hugged him, offering comfort through his fear, but Grace sat back. He described exactly what she had felt. But what _was_ it? "What does that mean?"

"What?" Rose pulled away from the man, frowning at her.

"What is the Devil?"

"They don't have the Devil in your time?"

The term sounded vaguely familiar, but far away, like she had learned it in grade school, or seen it in the Earth museum. But it flitted past with all the other pieces of history. Usually she was so good with retention. It must have been quite the beast, to get them all worked up like this.

"It's like… I don't know. It's pure evil."

Grace nodded. Easy enough. "And… the Doctor is down there with it?"

Rose swallowed, looking to the ground. "Yeah."

Ida came over the radio. "Okay, we're in. Bring us up."

Rose and Grace shared a glance, sharing their concern for their friend, and then joined the others at the console. Jefferson manned the buttons.

"Ascension in three, two, one."

When he flipped the switch, the room went dark.

Grace got a flicker from down below. Fear. Surprise. It was the Doctor. She smiled at the contact, wondering if he knew she could see him.

A voice came from the computer. It showed the Ood standing outside.

"This is the darkness. This is my domain. You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns which die in the end… Only the darkness remains."

Flane responded. "This is Captain Zachary Cross Flane of Sanctuary Base 6, representing the Torchwood Archive. You will identify yourself."

The Ood sounded terrifying. "You know my name."

"What do you want?"

"You will die here, all of you. This planet is your grave."

Rose put an arm around Grace, trembling.

Toby rocked in his seat. "It's him. It's him. It's him."

The Doctor was the only one unfazed by the voice. "If you are the Beast, then answer me this. Which one, hmm? 'Cause this universe has been busy since you've been gone. There's more religions than there are planets in the sky. The Arkiphets, Quoldonity, Christianity, Pash Pash, Neo-Judaism, San Claar, the Church of the Tin Vagabond. Which devil are you?"

" _All of them_."

"What, then you're the truth behind the myth?"

"This one knows me as I know him. The killer of his own kind."

What did that mean? The Curator told her the Time Lords were responsible for wiping out the Lightbringers. Was the Beast implying that the Doctor had wiped out the Time Lords? He had never told her that. He only said they were gone. He acted like he missed them. How could that be true if he was the one who killed them?

The Doctor moved past that statement immediately.

"How did you end up on this rock?"

And the Beast moved on as well. "The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the Pit for all eternity."

"When was this?"

"Before time."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"Before time."

The Doctor became frustrated. "What does ' _before time'_ mean?"

"Before time and light and space and matter. Before the Cataclysm. Before this universe was created."

"That's impossible. No life could have existed back then."

"Is that _your_ religion?"

"It's a belief."

"You know nothing. All of you, so small. The captain, so scared of command. The soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife. The scientist, still running from daddy. The little boy who lied, the virgin, and the lost girl. So far away from home. The valiant Rose who will die in battle so very soon."

Grace felt Rose tremble inside, and outside, and took her hand. She had the radio clutched, and she whispered, "Doctor, what does that mean?"

"Rose, don't listen."

"What does that mean?"

The Beast carried on. "And the little one… I see you." His anger prodded at the corners of Grace's mind. She flinched. "Hiding your nature. So scared to be alone. Eleven little horses dancing around in your head… Where will you hide when he comes?"

Grace felt her insides twisting up. What was he talking about? Eleven horses… Where had she heard that before? Who was supposed to be coming?

"Don't listen!" The Doctor sounded furious.

"You will die!" The Beast roared. "And I will live!"

The screen flashed, the Ood vanished, and a terrifying imagine appeared. Rose and Grace jumped away from it. Danny shouted something. Rose still had the radio. She was shaking.

"Doctor, what did it mean?"

Chaos. Everyone was talking at once. Their panic flooded her head.

She heard Rose, because Rose was important to her. Everyone else became a blur.

"Doctor, how did it know…?"

"Stop!" The Doctor spoke over them. "Everyone just stop!"

The radio squealed, and everyone paused.

The Doctor came through. "If you want voices in the dark, then listen to mine. That thing is playing on very basic fears. Darkness, childhood, nightmares, all that stuff."

"But that's how the Devil works!" Danny exclaimed.

"Or a good psychologist," the Doctor countered.

Ida spoke. "How did it know about my father?"

"Okay, but what makes his version of the truth any better than mine, hmm? 'Cause I'll tell you what I can see. Humans. Brilliant humans. Humans who travel all the way across space, flying in a tiny little rocket right into the orbit of a black hole, just for the sake of discovery. That's amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing. All of you. The captain, his officer, his elder, his juniors, his friends. All with one advantage, the Beast is alone, we are not. If we can use that to fight against him-"

The compound heaved again. Rose was nearly thrown down the stairs. Grace grabbed her, but let the others fall. The rope holding the elevator began to shred. _Plunk. Plunk. Plunk_. And then it dropped down into the shaft.

"The cable's snapped!" The Doctor's panicked voice came through. "Get out!"

It hit the ground with a terrible crash.

Rose had the radio. "Doctor, we lost the cable. Doctor, are you alright? _Doctor_?"

Nothing. Flane announced that the coms were down.

Rose kept trying. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

Flane was speaking at the same time as her. "I've still got life-signs, but we've lost the capsule. There's no way out. They're stuck down there."

She was desperate. "Say something! Are you there?"

Grace went to the edge of the shaft, looking down into the darkness, searching for him. She opened herself up completely, and the angry Beast swept over her, but so did another feeling. Her cloud of fire. He was alive.

"He's alive. He's okay." Grace went back to Rose, taking her hand off the radio. "I can feel him. He's alive."

Rose gasped, her hand over her heart. "I thought…"

"I know."

"We've got to bring them back."

Jefferson stared down into the shaft. "They're ten miles down. We haven't got another ten miles of cable."

Something banged on the door behind them.

Jefferson spoke to his wrist. "Captain? Situation report."

"It's the Ood. They're cutting through the door bolts. They're breaking in."

"Yes. Same on door 25." Jefferson went upstairs and looked through the hole in the door, cringing.

"How long is it gonna take?" Rose asked.

"Well, it's only a basic frame. Should take ten minutes." Another bang came from behind them and he glanced back. "Uh, eight."

Rose was shifting nervously. "Right. So we need to stop them or get out or both."

"I'll take both," Danny said. "But how?"

"You heard the Doctor." Rose was on fire. "Why do you think that thing cut him off? 'Cause he was making sense. He was telling you to think your way out of this. Come on! For starters, we need some lights! Zack, there's got to be some sort of power somewhere!"

Flane responded. "There's nothing I can do. Some captain! Stuck in here, pressing buttons."

"That's what the Doctor meant. Press the right buttons."

"They've gutted the generators!" He paused, and seemed to have an epiphany. "But the rocket's got an independent supply. If I could reroute that… Mr. Jefferson, open the bypass conduits. Override the safety."

While they worked, Grace sat at the edge of the shaft. She tried to follow the fiery cloud around, but the further the Doctor moved from the hole, the dimmer he became, until he finally faded away. When the lights came back on, Rose clapped.

She began questioning Toby.

He said something about the language.

Grace looked up. "What?"

Rose frowned. "The letters. The writing on the rocks."

"I think I…" Grace shut her mouth. Rose already knew of her abilities. She had seen her destroy the Ood. Did she really need to tell her she could sort of read some evil ancient language?

Rose looked at her curiously.

Luckily, Toby stepped in. "Since that thing was inside my head, it's like the letters make more sense."

Rose nodded to Toby. "Well, get to work. Anything you can translate, just, anything." She went to Danny. "As for you, Danny boy, you're in charge of the Ood. Any way of stopping them."

"You could just get your friend to blow them up," Jefferson commented.

Rose ignored him. "Danny?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Then find out. The sooner we get control of the base, the sooner we can get the Doctor out. Now get going."

Grace admired her leadership, and her finesse. She took charge like it was her birthright. When she came back to the elevator shaft, Grace saw the real strain on her. She was worried about the Doctor. It was all over her face, no need to feel her emotions.

It was getting easier to ignore them now. Grace was shutting the others out. She blocked them up like hallways, like passages in a beehive, and focused on Rose, and on finding the Doctor.

"Anything?" Rose nudged her.

"No. Nothing. I think he walked away from the entrance."

"He's always doing that." Rose smiled. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine. Perfect."

"Yeah? Cause you're shaking a little."

"Am I?" Grace looked at her hand, surprised to find her fingers trembling. Rose was right. She hadn't realized her own fear, beyond the feelings of the others. "I was just… what it said…"

"The Doctor said it was just picking at our fears."

"I know, but…"

Rose seemed to want to say something encouraging, but it faded. She looked perplexed. "You know, when we were on Earth, the weird timeline and all, there was this forest, and these little wooden horses. When everything else was gone, they were still there. Eleven of them. I thought I… for a while it was like I dreamt it, but it comes back sometimes. Now I know it was real."

Grace felt cold inside.

Rose put an arm around her. "But I'm sure it was… it was nothing."

"Do you really believe that?"

"No… I just hope it was nothing."


	42. There is No Choice

**Chapter 42.**

 **There is No Choice.**

Grace hardly listened to what they were doing. She heard the clanging at the door, and Danny talking, and Rose giving orders again, but her mind was elsewhere – with the eleven horses. She had a few wooden horses in her room, in various states of disrepair. She never really _got_ them. They were just there, for as long as she could remember. But what was it the Beast said? They were dancing in her head? And who was coming for her?

She sat at the shaft and tried to quell the need to know, but it didn't work. She reached out and felt the angry creature in the air all around. It was waiting for an invitation.

Grace gave it.

It was in her mind again, but the effect was muted, like a virus she had already been exposed to. Its voice was sinister and quiet.

 _A lot less small than the other ones._

Grace swallowed. She tried to narrow her thoughts, to speak to it.

 _You said… something about horses. What did you mean?_

 _Do you want to know how I was created, little Lightbringer?_

 _No. I want to know what you meant._

 _Think about it. What could create the darkest darkness in the universe? What, but the Creators themselves? What, but the dust of life? What, but the Shepherds of Death?_

Her blood ran cold. It couldn't be.

 _For your race, there are two sides to everything. There is no choice. If you bask in the glow of the stars, in the warmth of the soul of one as pure as the Doctor, you must also walk among the shadows, and feel the taint of power, the lure of lust. I can feel your hunger. I know what you want. Turn to them. Raise your hands. You know who stands in your way._

 _My way to what?_

 _Your way to him. He loves her._

Grace looked back. Rose was at the console with the others. She knew exactly what the Beast was talking about. He wanted her to kill Rose because she was organizing the others – he tempted her by reminding her how much she loved the Doctor.

 _Raise your hand, and take what is yours._

She looked back at the shaft, diverting her attention. _If you know so much, tell me this. Maybe I'll believe in this power you say you have. There's something else in my head. A presence. What is it?_

The Beast was quiet for several moments.

And then it came back, giving her a chill with its tone.

 _Beautiful, beautiful hatred. What will you do when he comes for you?_

Grace stood up, severing her connection with the Beast. She shut everything down, as much as she could. But her own fear could not be avoided. His words echoed. His temptation lingered. She looked at Rose and saw her as an obstacle for the first time.

And it made her sick.

Rose came over, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What is it?"

"Nothing." Grace shook herself. "What are we doing?"

"We're escaping through the ventilation shafts. Well, sort of. Come on."

They pulled up the grates on the floor, revealing a tunnel beneath them. The banging came louder. Something sparked as the door began to give way.

Rose hesitated. "We're coming back! You got that? We're coming back to get the Doctor!"

Jefferson looked at them all in turn. "Danny, you go first, then Miss Tyler, then Grace, then Toby. I'll go last in defensive position. Now come on, quick as you can!"

It happened very quickly from that point on.

Danny hit the ground. Rose crawled in after him. Grace sat at the edge and went after her. Toby dropped in last. It was a small tunnel, and it wreaked of death.

"God, it stinks." Rose looked at her. "You all right?"

"Which way do we go?"

Grace stuck close to Rose. She hated the tiny space, and the smell, and the presence looming in the back of her head. It was hard to focus with all the noise going on. They crawled in a rush, taking direction from Flane over the radio.

When they stopped for a moment, everyone was panting.

Flane talked them through what he was doing, and everyone buzzed with a quick, irritable conversation. Rose put her arm around Grace, keeping an eye on her.

"You alright?" she whispered.

She asked that a lot. "I'm fine."

"You look a little… sick."

"Do not vomit in here!" Danny growled.

"Shut it. She's fine." Rose rubbed her shoulder. "We'll move on to the next section soon as he gets the oxygen in. Just relax."

Something clanged the way they had come.

So much for relaxing.

"What was that noise?"

"What was that?"

"Captain, what was that?"

Grace covered her ears, blocking out the sounds to focus. She felt the anger nearby. "It's the Ood." She got up on her knees, passing Mr. Jefferson at the end of the row. "I can feel it. They're coming down the shaft!"

The group was on the move again. Flane opened the gate, and they crawled frantically away. But the Ood were coming. They were so fast. Jefferson was trailing at the back with that gun of his.

Grace moved him out of the way, urging him ahead. "Go on! I can hold them off!"

The Beast pierced her mind. _Let them die_.

Jefferson tried to argue, but Grace pushed him on. "You saw what I can do! Go!"

Rose grabbed her. "No! You can't stop! Come on!"

"Get out of here!" Grace pushed her away. "You have to save the Doctor!"

 _Let them die._

Grace cupped one of her ears. "Shut up!"

Rose stared at her, wide-eyed, and didn't move. "I'm not leaving you here! Friends, remember?"

"Someone grab her!" Grace turned toward the tunnel. She could feel the Ood approaching.

Jefferson grabbed Rose by the arm and dragged her away, kicking and shouting.

Grace stayed in the junction, guarding either side. The Ood were approaching.

She could hear them down the hall, at the next junction.

Grace tapped into her abilities, doing her best to shut the Beast out. Her veins began to glow, illuminating the whole tunnel, and one by one, the advancing Ood fell to dust. She felt powerful, and she wasn't sure if her joy at the incident came from the presence, or the Beast, or herself. One shot at a time, one palm out, one jolt of cold in her heart, and they were gone.

With each subsequent strike, her stomach felt colder, and the emotions of the people up ahead grew clearer. Each disintegrating body gave her power.

When the last one fell, she turned and crawled after the others.

She could see them at the end. Rose was staring at her, sliding sideways through a gate.

"Grace! Come on!"

As she reached it, and before she could get through it, the gate slammed shut. Grace stopped, on her hands and knees, and stared it. She waited. Rose was on the other side, screaming at Flane to open the gate. It was impossible. Grace knew that.

The Ood rounded a corner, pausing at the peculiar state they found her in.

Grace sat against the gate, watching them, waiting for them to approach. She was not afraid of them. She was not afraid because she knew she could kill them. But she _was_ afraid of how hard it was getting to breathe. She was going to die, and for the first time, she realized she was afraid of death.

The Ood came, and she raised a hand, removing them from the world just like that. Dust settled on the tunnel floor. She felt the cold spot growing larger inside. She felt Rose in agony at the loss.

The Beast spoke again. _Foolish. You could have had so much_. _Others were willing to die for the mission, and you, the only one unwilling, put yourself in this position. Why?_

 _You were wrong. There is a choice. There's always a choice._

He was silent.

 _I kill them… and I get stronger. Is that what this is?_

 _Lightbringers feed on the souls of their victims._

Grace shuddered. She felt awful inside, but more powerful than ever. She knew that Rose was alright because of it. She could follow her through the building, even as her oxygen supply dwindled and her lungs began to burn.

The Beast spoke on. _I wonder how the Doctor will feel about your sacrifice?_

Grace flinched. She had felt his loneliness. She knew how much he suffered. And when he heard what had happened to her, he would suffer for it. He would blame himself. He was good at that. But he had Rose. He was going to be fine.

It was the scariest for her, the darkest for her, not because of her impending death, or because of her burning lungs, or the presence screaming inside for more Ood to kill.

It was because it was the end of a journey she had barely started.

And it wasn't fair.


	43. He Fell

**Chapter 43.**

 **He Fell.**

They were safe. The Ood had bucked and collapsed. But it was far from a victory. Rose leaned into the railing to steady herself. All she could see was Grace's face as that gate shut on her. She had failed her. She was supposed to be protecting her, and she failed.

But she still had a duty to the Doctor.

She took up the radio. "We did it. The Ood are down. Now we've got to get the Doctor."

Flane came back to her. "I'm on my way."

Rose joined the others and headed back to the elevator shaft. She thought of the vents, of the body beneath them, but forced herself to shake it away. She was going back down there. She was going to find Grace and take her back home. She knew what would have happened – the oxygen drained into their tunnel, and drained away from Grace. Flane made it very clear. She would have suffocated quickly. But she was still down there. She was down there, and Rose was going to go and get her. She deserved that. She deserved to be rescued – even if it was too late.

When she got a hold of the radio, his name was the first thing out of her mouth. "Doctor, are you there? Doctor, Ida, can you hear me?"

Flane arrived, looking relieved to see them all. "The coms are still down. I can patch them through the central desk and boost the signal. Just give me a minute."

In the silence that followed, Rose made a decision. "Can you get us back through the vents?"

Flane paused what he was doing. He frowned. "Rose…"

"I know. I know. But… I can't leave her there. I can't."

Jefferson ran his hand through his hair, and then sighed. "I'll get her. Just take me through."

Rose helped guide him through the tunnels, to the point where they had lost Grace. She waited, her heart aching, as he confirmed what he found. He carried her back. When he emerged from the vents, Rose was there. He lifted Grace out and set her down, looking away from her.

She was still and quiet, her eyes shut, her skin pale.

Roes felt numb inside. "Just… bring her in with us. Just please… we can't leave her. She has a mum, and a family. I can't leave her."

Flane nodded. "We won't. But… Jefferson, put her in the rocket. In the cargo hold. Go."

"The cargo hold?" Rose repeated, incredulous.

"She'll be safe there. If we make it out of here, she'll have a proper burial."

Rose watched him go, trying to make herself breathe normally. Grace was dead. The Doctor was missing. Everything was falling to pieces and she didn't think she could survive it.

Finally, Ida came over the radio.

But what she said took her breath away.

"He's gone."

Rose could feel her heart breaking. It seized up in her chest. "What do you mean, he's gone?"

"He fell… into the Pit. And I don't know how deep it is, miles and miles and miles."

She couldn't understand it. She just couldn't. "What do you mean, he fell?"

"I couldn't stop him. He said your name."

Rose felt a burning start up inside. Everything lost its meaning. If the Doctor was gone… what really mattered? It was something that should never happen. It was something she had never planned to face. It was her darkest fear.

Flane took the radio gently from her hand. "I'm sorry." He spoke into it. "Ida? There's no way of reaching you. No cable, no backup. You're ten miles down. We can't get there."

Ida came back a little dreamy. "You should see this place, Zack. It's beautiful. I wanted to discover things, and here I am."

"We've got to abandon the base." Flane's eyes were watering. "I'm declaring this mission unsafe. All we can do is make sure no one ever comes here again."

"But we'll never find out what it was," Ida whimpered.

"Well, maybe that's best."

"Yeah."

Flane paused for a moment, losing his voice, and then he said, "Officer Scott-"

She interrupted him. "It's alright. Just go. Good luck."

She sounded like Grace had in the tunnels. Rose hated that tone. She hated those words.

Flane began to plan their departure.

Rose turned to him. "I'm not going."

He frowned. "Rose, there's space for you."

"No, I'm gonna wait for the Doctor, just like he'd wait for me."

Flane shook his head. "I'm sorry, but he's dead."

"You don't know him," Rose said, a tremble coming into her voice. How could anyone else understand the Doctor? "'Cause he's not. I'm telling you, he's not. And even if he was, how could I leave him all on his own, all the way down there? No, I'm… I'm gonna stay."

Flane nodded. "Then I apologize for this. Danny, Toby, make her secure."

The men came up behind her and grabbed her. It was the worst possible thing that could happen. Rose struggled against them. "No! No! Stop! Let me go! Get off me! I'm not leaving! No!"

She felt a prick in her arm, and the room went dark.


	44. The Pit

**Chapter 44.**

 **The Pit.**

The Doctor stirred. It was dark all around him, save the glow inside his smashed helmet. He staggered upright, drawing in a gasp as he realized his oxygen was compromised. But nothing happened. What was going on?

"I'm breathing…" He yanked the broken helmet off. "Air cushion to support the fall…" He tried to get his com to respond. "You can breathe down here. Can you hear me, Ida?"

There was a rumbling up above. The Doctor looked up the impossibly tall shaft, into the darkness, and had a gut feeling as to what it was. "The rocket." It was their only possibility for escape. It was departing, and he and Ida were not on it. He had no way of knowing if Rose and Grace were on it, either. Or had the Ood gotten to them? The thought broke his heart.

He had to shake it, though. He focused on the task at hand, on the massive chasm that he had dropped into. Something ancient was nesting here. It was too late to turn back now.

He ran his flashlight over the walls, exposing paintings of a red, horned beast, and legions of what he assumed were humans falling under its wrath. He spoke to himself, unsure if anyone else was listening. "History of some big battle. Man against Beast. I don't know if you're getting this, Ida. Hope so. Anyway, they defeated the Beast and imprisoned it."

The Doctor turned, finding a singular podium beside him. It had a greenish vase on it, like the imagines of black vases on the walls.

"And maybe that's the key…" He approached, discovering a second podium nearby. They were identical. He placed his hand on the handle of one and the base glowed yellow, and then the other one lit up. "Or the gate or the bars."

Something growling.

Another pit opened up beside the vases, and a massive creature stirred.

He was standing right next to it.

Its body was red, its horns long and curved against its skull. It was several stories tall, and it laughed with an edge like a monster. It was chained by its arms and around its horns, bound to the walls. As it moved, the chains rattled. It leaned in and looked down at him, into him, and he stared up at it, completely baffled that something like this could exist.

It was monstrous. It was incredible. It was terrifying.

He found the words to speak after several moments of just staring.

"I accept that you exist. I don't have to accept what you are. But your physical existence, I give you that."

It growled. The sounds were unintelligible.

"I don't understand." The Doctor stepped closer. "I was expected down here. I was given a safe landing and air. You need me for something. What for?"

It growled again, and lunged, but the chains held it back.

The Doctor was perplexed. "Have I got to… I don't know, beg an audience or… is there a ritual? Some sort of incantation or summons or spell? All these things I don't believe in, are they real? Speak to me! Tell me!"

It was becoming clear now.

"You won't talk… or you can't talk. Hold on, hold on. Wait a minute. Just let me… Oh! No. Yes! No. Think it through. You spoke before, I heard your voice. An intelligent voice. No, more than that. Brilliant!" He surveyed the Beast before him. "But looking at you now, all I can see… is beast. The animal, just the body. You're just the body, the physical form. What's happened to your mind, hmm? Where's it gone? Where's that intelligence?"

It struck him all at once.

"Oh, no." His eyes drifted upward. The rocket. He went on, reasoning with an animal. "You were imprisoned a long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, it doesn't matter. The prison is perfect." He shined his flashlight over the paintings, putting them together one piece at a time. "It's absolute. It's eternal. Oh, yes! Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the black hole. You escape, you die. Brilliant!"

He walked between the vases, and the beast watched him closely.

"But that's just the body. The body is trapped, that's all. The Devil is an idea. In all those civilizations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea can escape. The mind, the mind of the great Beast, the mind can escape."

And then it clicked.

"Oh, but that's it! You didn't give me air, your jailers did!" He spun, unable to contain his excitement. "They set this up all those years ago! They need me alive. Because if you're escaping, then I've got to stop you!"

The Beast lunged, disliking that exclamation.

The Doctor heaved up a boulder. "If I destroy your prison, your body is destroyed, your mind with it." He raised the rock, but paused. No. Not that simple. He dropped it. "But then you're clever enough to use this whole system against me. If I destroy this planet, I destroy the gravity field. The rocket. The rocket loses protection, falls into the black hole. I have to sacrifice Rose and Grace."

The Beast chuckled. Out of all the things he said, it seemed to most understand that.

"So that's the trap, or the test or the final judgement, I don't know. But if I kill you, I kill them."

The Beast rejoiced.

"Except that implies in this big, grand scheme of gods and devils, that they are just victims. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing, I believe in Rose."

He grabbed the boulder again, smashing the nearest vase. It went out like a light. The planet began to shake. The Doctor destroyed the second one.

"This is your freedom!" he shouted. "Free to die! You're going into that black hole, and I'm riding with you!"

The Beast heaved in his prison, shaking the room, growing and snarling. He was set ablaze, a flaming beast writhing in his cage. The Doctor backed away from the edge as boulders were flung across the ground.

The Doctor made his run for safety, but the place was shaking too badly. He stumbled, and hit something hard.

When he looked up, his heart fluttered.

The TARDIS. She was alive!

He laughed, filled with pure joy.

She was just as he had left her inside. He ran for the controls, doing a scan of his surroundings. The planet was plummeting into the black hole. He went first to the top of the shaft and retrieved Ida from the ground. She was starved of oxygen, but alive. He had only seconds after that. He aimed for the space nearby, where the rocket was also plummeting.

He threw out a gravity field for them, forcing a pause, and hooked the two ships together, beginning to drag them back out of the black hole.

The Doctor took over their radio. "Sorry about the hijack, Captain. This is the good ship TARDIS."

Rose squealed in the background. "Doctor! Where are you?"

"I'm just towing you home." He smiled. "Gravity-shmavity. My people practically invented black holes. Well, in fact, they did. Couple of minutes, we'll be nice and safe. Oh, and Captain, can we do a swap? Say if you give me Rose and Grace, I'll give you Ida Scott. How about that?"

"She's alive!" Flane exclaimed.

But he heard a hitch of breath somewhere.

"Bit of oxygen starvation, but she should be alright. I couldn't save the Ood. I only had time for one trip. They went down with the planet."

His console beeped.

"Ahh. Entering clear space. End of the line. Mission closed."

When the two ships settled, out of danger of the black hole, Rose popped into the TARDIS. When she saw him, her face lit up, and he smiled in response. But then her expression sunk. Her eyes watered. She came over to him and threw her arms around his neck.

"Doctor… I thought you were… and Grace, oh God!"

"What?" What he expected to be a happy reunion was shattered. He drew away, examining her face. He came to the worst conclusion. He came to the worst possible thing. "Please. Don't tell me that. Rose… what happened?"

She shook her head, and tears dotted her cheeks. "She… There were Ood in the ventilation shafts… she saved us…"

No.

It was like someone had punched him in the chest.

"Is she… was she…?"

"I tried to stop her, but they wouldn't let me!"

No.

It was like the room had turned completely sideways.

"She's in the rocket." Rose gasped, wiping tears away. She stuttered, out of breath. "I want to… I couldn't leave her behind… I couldn't leave her."

He was absolutely numb inside. Every inch of him. He staggered upright and headed through the doors, taking a short jump across to the rocket. The TARDIS was protecting them all in a little pocket of air, but when the door opened, everyone inside jumped like they were about to be sucked into space. When they saw him, their expressions darkened.

No.

He kept coming up to that word.

Flane pointed to the back. "Uh, pull the lever there. We put a sheet on her."

The Doctor pulled the lever, and opened up a little storage area, like a cargo hold. It was a trunk. They put her in the trunk.

And there she was, all little and beautiful, wrapped in a white sheet with her face uncovered. His breath caught. Of all the things he had felt for her this day – this long and terrible day – the least expected was grief. _Pain_. Pure and simple. He had brought her here, after all. It was his sense of adventure, his curiosity about what she was, that brought her here. He brought her here to die.

He ran his finger down her cheek.

It was warm.

His hearts skipped a few beats.

He pressed his fingers to her neck, feeling a ghost of a pulse under her skin.

Rose appeared behind him, fragile hope in her voice. "Doctor?"

The Doctor stood, dragging her out of the cargo hold. He picked her up and the warmth increased to almost feverish heat. He was familiar with this. It was a form of hibernation. It was an adaptation some species used to survive in brutal climates – severe cold, trauma, drowning, suffocation.

He took her back to the TARDIS and laid her on the ground in the console room.

Rose hovered. "What is it? Is she…?"

The Doctor rolled her face between his hands, trying to get her mind to stir. "What happened to her? I need to know exactly what happened."

Rose rushed through it. "Um, we were in the ventilation shafts, and um, she got locked behind a gate. All the oxygen drained out. She suffocated."

He smiled. He got the best feeling inside.

Rose got on her knees and took one of Grace's hands. "Oh, my God. Grace! Grace?"

"Relax, easy. Keep your voice down." The Doctor scanned her with his screwdriver, fascinated by its findings. "Her heart slowed down until she was basically dead. Barely any blood flow. But her brain is still active. She can probably hear us. She dodged death by a hair… less than a hair."

Rose leaned in closer, stroking Grace's wild hair down. "Hey. It's okay. It's alright. We got out. Everything is fine now. We're in the TARDIS."

The Doctor admired her compassion. "Stay with her. I have to disengage with the rocket."

He went to the console, hesitating before he turned on the radio again. He had to take a moment to breathe. Grace was alive, and not only that, but she had proven much sturdier than he imagined. She was not just a humanoid, but one of those rare species that had a very hard time dying, like a Time Lord. It narrowed down his list of possibilities. He would have to research it later.

He hit the button.

"Zack, we'll be off now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something… Oh, what's the point? You'll just go blundering in. The human race!"

Ida was on the other end. It was nice to hear her voice again. "But, Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?"

"I don't know. Never did decipher that writing. But that's good. The day I know everything I might as well stop." He released the button and detached the two ships, allowing the rocket its freedom. It would return home, and the incredible people inside would never forget this journey.

Rose was still frowning at him. She had Grace's head up in her lap. "What do you think that thing was, really?"

The Doctor went over to them. "We beat it. That's good enough for me."

"It said I was gonna die in battle."

First Grace, and now Rose? He was being overwhelmed with this nonsense about death. He had this childish notion that Rose would never be lost. She simply couldn't be. She was too precious. She was too necessary.

He answered her with his hearts, not his head.

"Then it lied."

Rose seemed a little comforted by that. "What about Grace? We can't just leave her on the ground."

"Right. Mind if she uses your room for a bit? She doesn't actually have one yet."

"She hasn't slept in the TARDIS at all?"

The Doctor picked Grace up again, glad she was small. His back still hurt a little from falling into the Pit. He explained as they walked. "No. She slept in a church in North Carolina, circa 1851, and then on a plantation, maybe _with_ a strapping young man named Henry. But that's none of my business." He stopped at Rose's room and she opened the door for him. He set Grace on her bed, drawing the covers over her. He couldn't help his gazing. She was tranquil. And _alive_. "Just give her time, she'll be good as new."

"But how did she survive that?"

"Some species are more resistant. Mine is. But not _that_ resistant. I suppose everybody has their secrets."

Rose hugged him again, lingering, and then left.

The Doctor stayed, crouching by the bed and leaning into the mattress to get closer to her. He put his hand over her heart, measuring the beating, making sure it sped up at the right pace. He was baffled about her survival, and thrilled for it, and proud of her for protecting the others. And he was scared because the thought of losing her had shattered him inside. A couple of times, in that compound, on that rock, drifting about that black hole, Grace had touched his heart so completely that he felt an affection for her that was utterly new. She was a strange and addictive girl. She was more like him than he had ever imagined.

He stayed with her for a long time, sitting on the floor by the bed. Rose joined him and explained everything that happened at the base, even describing a new piece of the puzzle. Her unique ability to disintegrate matter with her bare hands. He had seen some new things himself. _Felt_ them. She tapped into his head and stayed there. She brushed his consciousness at the bottom of that mine shaft. She reached out for him somehow and made sure he was alright.

She was becoming stronger, even as she lay there, coming back from near-death. She felt more. She heard more. She could do more.

Did that mean she was maturing? Was her species one that came into its magnificent abilities all at once?

And the things the Beast said lingered in his mind. Eleven horses dancing in her head. And something coming for her. He dismissed its claims about Rose, but she had told him about her experience in the forest, where eleven wooden horses remained. And there were horses in Grace's room, perhaps unrelated. But in his head, they formed a web. A great big web of information. If something terrible was going to happen, if someone was going to try and hurt her, he was going to defend her. It was that simple.

He tucked Rose up under his arm, and slumped against the wall, and she fell asleep perfectly content. Over the course of the night – or the day, time was irrelevant this far out in space – Grace regained a regular heartbeat, and her coma became sleep.

She must have stirred at some point, but the Doctor found himself drifting.

He had not slept in a very long time, but it felt appropriate now. He was exhausted. He was drained.

So the three of them slept, and the Beast pervaded his dreams.


	45. The World Died

**Chapter 45.**

 **The World Died.**

Grace was a little girl again. She was in the dark, in her bedroom, way down at the bottom of the house. It was freezing because the heat never made it down to her. But she was not alone.

He was standing in the doorway, humming. She could see his familiar face because of the green glow of his eyes. It was anything but scary. He was smiling at her with the kind of admiration she had never seen before. She knew immediately who he was, and wondered, somewhere in the very back of her mind, if this was a memory or wishful thinking.

He came to her bedside and crouched down, resting his hands on the mattress. Grace watched in wonder as the deep veins pulsed with his heartbeat, as green as his eyes. When it came through the skin and the muscles, it was muted, but still beautiful.

He ran one glowing hand down the side of her head, speaking lowly, in a gentle rasp, "What is your favorite thing about this place so far?"

Grace answered without thinking. "Horsey."

"A horse it is." He reached into his pocket and produced a small dark block of wood. He kneaded it between his hands, his eyes pulsating, and it became something else. He came up with a tiny wooden horse, and ran his finger over one of its perfect ears. "I hope that one day you can forgive me. You have to keep this safe, my sweet."

Grace took the horse and ran it between her hands, surprised by its smooth frame, and expressive face. In her young mind, she was convinced he had magical hands.

She climbed out of bed and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he stood, sitting in the old recliner and holding onto her. He patted her back, and hummed to himself. He was warmer than the covers. He was warmer than the sun.

And she spoke again. "I wanna go home."

"I know. And I wish I could take you. But… some would see our home destroyed. You are too little to understand." He drew her face up and kissed her forehead. His features became clearer – dark, spikey hair, glowing eyes fading into green rings, just like hers.

She snuggled back into his neck. "Sing me a song."

He chuckled, pressing a hard, sad kiss to the top of her head. "You know, out of everyone else in the entire universe, I think you are the only one who appreciates my singing." He paused a few moments, and then began, his voice taking on a mystical whisper, "A little wooden horse, carved by Daddy's hands, for my favorite little girl, in this strange and distant land."

Grace shifted into the crook of his arm, staring up at him, watching him think through the lines.

"A mount, a stead, a companion, for a warrior and a queen. No matter how much blood you spill, your little hands are always clean." He drew one of her hands up and kissed her palm, smiling. "A flame inside this little horse, to represent your fire," he took up the horse and ran his fingernail over its belly, producing a carving shaped like a little flame, "Daddy says, no matter what, you'll get what you desire."

Grace saw flashes of another life, another world, with strange trees and flowing grasses, and the laughter of this man. She saw other children, and warm brown eyes watching her.

He brought her attention back, pressing the horse into her hand. "A little wooden horse, as a promise that one day, I'll come back for my little girl, and take her far away."

He got out of his chair and set her gently back in bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. He kissed her forehead, and lingered, staring into her eyes, appearing all at once regretful, and hopeful, and uncertain. His face reminded her a lot of hers.

"Sleep, my precious little warrior. I will return for you."

He was gone. Her room was gone. In a flash, in a blink, in a heartbeat, that beautiful memory left her. Grace tried to hold onto it, to clutch the little horse in her hand, but it melted away. Her father, who had vowed to come back for her, disappeared without a trace.

But something came in his absence.

Grace found herself in the museum again, in the final exhibit in the long and stories history of the Lightbringers. She was back in that mindset again, on the verge of losing everything because of what the alien on his knees in front of her knew. He knew what she was. He knew what she could do. He would bring that information to the Doctor, and she would lose everything that mattered to her in one fell swoop.

She could not let that happen.

She raised her hand to him, and her veins pulsed. She got a thrill at seeing it, because it was so similar to what she had seen in that man in her bedroom – her father. She was like him. She was not the only one. She was not alone in the universe.

The Curator fell away to dust, and she heard ghostly laughter.

Suddenly there was another where the Curator had been. He was on his knees, trembling, with a bleeding lip and glassy eyes.

The Doctor.

He looked at her with the kind of betrayal and fear that only came once in a lifetime. Grace knew at once, and indefinitely, that this kind of pain only came after you opened yourself up, after you let someone in and they hollowed out your insides. He looked like he had already been through a battle, and this was where it had brought him, on his knees at her mercy.

She felt emptiness emanating from him.

He was begging for his life. "Please. _Please_ , don't do this." His voice trembled and cracked. "Grace, you're better than this. You are. I know you are! You have to _fight_ him!"

What was he talking about?

She tried to fight the indifference inside, to realize that she wanted to protect him, not hurt him, but the presence stirred. It egged her on. She heard her father's voice in her head, a smooth, calm rasp in contrast to the desperation of her friend.

 _It is time to avenge your people._

The Doctor tried to stand up, diverting her attention. He collapsed with a yelp. His leg was broken. He slid back, supporting himself on one arm, and struggled to breathe. Now his emotions spiked and peeked through the veil in her head. Fear. Pain. Loss.

He put a hand up to defend himself, and shook his head, whispering, "Grace…"

His emotions vanished. Grace found it hard to hold onto her affection for him.

His eyes changed. It was all about the eyes. He was devastated. It was the devastation of a loss, and, strangely, she felt that she had seen that look in him before. His voice became a tragic thing. "I forgive you. I know it's not your fault. I forgive you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I failed you. I was supposed to protect you."

He hung his head, and a tear hit the floor.

"I was supposed to protect you both."

Grace felt another flash of reluctance. The Doctor was the kindest, sweetest, gentlest person she had ever met. She loved him, so much so that she was willing to kill the Curator to keep him from knowing the truth. But it seemed that he knew it now. How had that happened? What did he mean? Questions swirled, and she tried to hold on to him, to the beautiful look in his eyes when she gave him memories of home – but it faded.

Everything faded.

Grace put her hand up to him.

Her father came again, his voice a bit of a hum. He was singing the way he did in her bedroom when she was a little girl, only the words were louder, and darker, and truer.

"There was no other direction to take, no path away from his side."

Grace thrust her hand out, and the Doctor screamed as his body was destroyed.

She said the last line from memory, without wondering where it came from.

"He was the world, and with him, the world died."


	46. Waking

**Chapter 46.**

Grace woke up peacefully, despite the violence in her nightmares. When her eyes opened, the fear faded. It was just a dream. She pushed out of it like she was emerging from water. It was untrue, after all. She would never hurt the Doctor. She would never raise a hand to him.

Her last memory was of the vents.

She was not there anymore. Instead, she was in a nice, bright room, with pale wooden floors, a landing across a wide space, and a few carpets to jump across if the wood was too cold to walk on. Some of her furniture was there – her chair was beside her, freshly cleaned and within reach of her bed; her bookshelves lined the wall to her left; her wooden horses were displayed on a shelf up on the wall; her drawings of the Doctor were laid carefully, in order, on her desk.

Grace got up cautiously, stretching and getting a look around the room. It was big. It was bigger than the entire downstairs of her home. It was a welcome departure from the vents she had been in last time she was awake – it was much better than her cramped room in the basement.

But how did she get here?

She heard voices echoing in her head. Memories. Rose and the Doctor. Had she been rescued? If so, this had to be the TARDIS, and that made this room – this big, extravagant room – _her_ room. She smiled at the thought. She had a room.

Her clothes were folded in the drawers of a new dresser. It had a note on it.

 _Good morning! Well, not morning, since we're currently in space and technically there is no sunrise. I hope you feel alright. It is now the second day that you've been sleeping. Rose and I will be in the library if you need us. Feel free to get something to eat. Rose stocked the kitchen for you. Love, the Doctor._

Grace smiled. She realized she was losing parts of herself because of him. When she met him the last thing she wanted to do to anyone was hug anyone, but when she saw him she was going to wrap her arms around him. Last time she had seen him he had been descending into an elevator shaft to face an unknown monster on an impossible planet. She needed to know that he was okay.

She moved sluggishly around the room, acclimating herself. She dressed in shorts and a tank top, her usual getup, and tried to comb down her wild hair. It was spikier than usual, with a few curls thrown in around the sides for comedic effect. It was a darker brown now.

She lingered when she looked at her face – angular, pale, with green rings – and saw the similarities to the man in her dream. He really was her father. He had to be.

Before she left she retrieved the dark wooden horse, the smallest in her collection, and put it in her pocket. It was a compulsion. His words were still echoing in her head. _You have to keep this safe, my sweet._ She hoped her dream was real, that she had just forgotten seeing him because she was so little and everything was so new. It was a beautiful idea, to imagine he had really been there, and that he was really coming back for her.

She left her room, mashing a button beside the door to get it to open. She felt something ghostly in the hallway and ran her hands along the walls. "I appreciate the room." She could almost feel what it was feeling. The TARDIS had a soul. It had a burning, thinking, timeless soul. But it was hard to grasp. She tried anyway. "It's great. Spacious. Much better than home."

Grace wandered the halls for a while, appreciating the warm glow of the TARDIS all around her. She wondered if the Doctor could feel it. She wondered if that was why he was so protective of it. It was beyond her understanding, but maybe he got it. Maybe that was his power.

She found several rooms she had never seen before. First was a gigantic stadium with a pool in the center. She walked along the edge, to the silvery net that separated the deep end from the shallow end, and followed something through the water. It was emoting. It was feeling very lonely. Leave it to the Doctor to keep some kind of monster in his pool.

Grace got on her knees at the edge and put her fingers in, disturbing the peaceful water. "What are you? Cephalopod? Shark? Do sharks feel emotion? I guess they get excited. Not lonely, though."

The water stirred and a shadow passed through the dark.

"Squid." Grace got on her stomach, plunging her whole arm in. "Hey, big guy. You were all extinct when I started school. I never got to see one of you. From what I've heard there were never really that many to start with."

She could see it just beyond the surface, a monstrous creature with an eye larger than she was peering back at her. But it was not just an animal. It was _curious_. It was thinking.

"Colossal squid… or not." She twisted her hand around, and a tentacle brushed her palm. It sent an exciting chill up her spine. "No, no. You are not from Earth. No way. It figures the Doctor would have a giant alien squid in his swimming pool."

It continued to peer back at her, and its tentacle brushed her again.

She pitied it, all alone in that pool. She felt nothing else of its caliber in the water, nothing else capable of feeling loneliness. "How about I tell the Doctor he needs to get you a friend?"

Grace felt a very faint rush of hope glimmer from below.

It was fascinating.

"You can… understand me. Okay then. Got to keep my promise." She hopped up, smiling down at the big, beautiful thing. She had never imagined being able to see creatures like that in real life, let alone in a swimming pool. She had never imagined being able to _feel_ what they felt. "But I have to go now. Hold me to my promise, okay? Big old squid buddy."

She continued her wandering, beaming from her encounter with his pool monster. What else did he have hidden in this TARDIS? She had done a little exploring on the way to the past, but somehow she had missed a lot. Every door she came to, the Doctor told her to turn back around. She ignored those doors now, going into the duller ones.

She came upon an observatory with a clunky telescope in the center. She found a room full of clothes that seemed to have been struck by a tornado. She found a room with a glass door and white panels on the walls.

Finally, when she was beginning to consider looking for a map to the place, she came upon the library. It was every definition of gorgeous.

It had a high, high ceiling like the pool, and rounded archways along the bottom, and story after story, aisle after aisle, of books on shelves from the floor to the ceiling. It was decorated with green trim, with regal gold patterns, and muted lights. Grace valued information, so seeing it all stacked up there made her heart flutter.

But that little flutter was nothing compared to when she saw the Doctor.

He saw her first. He was already halfway to her, and before she could even greet him, he had her in a hug. He spun her around, holding on tightly, and laughed.

Grace laughed, too. "Hi."

He released her, absolutely beaming, "Hi. Get a good rest?"

She pushed the nightmares to the back of her mind and hugged him again. She let his joy wash over her. The last thing she had felt from him was uncertainty and fear at the bottom of the mine shaft. She had to shake that impression away.

And then she realized what she was doing.

She let him go and backed off. "Sorry."

He continued his smile, unbothered.

Rose caught her in a hug next, her arms much tighter. "Never do that to me again!"

She was not angry. Far from it. She was intimately relieved. Grace realized she really cared. She could still remember her fear as she was being dragged down the vent. She returned the hug and nodded. "Sorry. I thought I could make it."

When her friend released her, they stood in goofy, smiling silence for a moment, and then the Doctor seemed to realize something. He grabbed a book off a nearby table and brought it to her.

"Could you read this line for me?"

Grace frowned. Was he worried she had hit her head a little too hard?

She glanced over the page, at a series of symbols that translated rapidly to letters, and read it to him. "On the planet, they documented fourteen separate tribes."

He looked astonished for a moment, and then he nodded. He tossed the book away. "Lightbringer."

Grace froze. He knew. How could he know? Her first instinct told her to come up with an excuse, to explain her behavior, but the Doctor did not look angry. He was pleased with himself. Rose was curious. Both of them lacked anything that would alarm her.

Except for that knowledge.

"W-W-What?" she asked.

He put his arm around her shoulder and led her to a table. "Sit down." He sat across from her, with Rose hovering nearby. He folded his hands on the table. "I figured out your species. Rose told me everything that happened in the base while I was gone and I used a few context clues. Do you remember those words we saw in the common room?"

Grace nodded numbly.

"I now believe they were written by Lightbringers, possibly millions of years before. Were you able to read them?"

"N-No."

"Well, regardless, the Lightbringers were an ancient race. By some accounts they existed before mine, which is an accomplishment in itself." He toyed with a book in front of him, watching her face very closely. "But they died out, maybe, 30 million billion years before I was even born. So that begs the question – how did you get to Earth in the 26th century?"

"Did they…? I mean, could they travel in time?"

"No. No. I can't see how that would be possible." He twisted his lips, sighing. "But everything fits. Your glow, your abilities. The TARDIS even figured it out before me – she ran a scan while you were sleeping, to pick out how she wanted to make your room, and she said it out loud. I wondered why she hadn't said it earlier, and then I thought… maybe she got it from your head."

Grace picked at the leather in her chair, looking away from him. "How?"

"I don't know. But it's curious, right?"

She glanced up. His gaze bored into her. "Right."

Rose glared at the Doctor. "So what he meant to ask, _without_ being so passive aggressive, is, do you know anything you're not telling us?"

Grace put on her best honest face. "No. I mean, I knew I was… an alien, but what does that even mean? Lightbringer? What kind of name is that?"

"About as silly as Time Lord," Rose agreed.

"Oi!" The Doctor frowned at her, and then looked at Grace, apparently deciding to drop his attitude. He was still curious, suspicious, on the inside. He couldn't hide that. "Do you know if you were adopted? We might could stop by, ask your mum-"

Grace cut him off. "You said you wouldn't take me back home."

It was a simple statement, with an easy workaround, and if he had wanted to push the point she would have given in, but those words resonated with him. He nodded seriously. "I did. Strike that, then. Whoever put you on Earth probably wiped her memory, anyway."

"Why?"

"Close the loop. Keep you safe." He maintained his seriousness. "You could very well be the last of your kind. It took me so long to figure out what you were because the Lightbringers have been gone for so long – not a whisper, in 30 million billion years. Not a mention. I can imagine there are things out there that would want to hurt you for what you are."

She repeated the question, "Why?"

"Lightbringers were not known to be…" he cleared his throat. "They were complicated. Leave it at that. I don't have much on them so I prefer not to speculate."

Rose took over the conversation, coming to sit beside her and distracting her from the very serious brood of the Doctor. She gave Grace a quick summation of what happened after she was trapped in the vents, and cut the Doctor off when he tried to give her a scientific explanation of how she had survived. Rose settled on the word 'hibernation,' and Grace accepted it for the moment. She also faced the possibility of being left in the vents and projected into a black hole.

Grace told them she had no memory of being out for two days, aside from snippets of their voices when they brought her into the TARDIS. She kept the dreams to herself, and kept her eyes away from the Doctor. The longer they sat there together, the more she thought about the version of him she had seen all beaten and broken. She heard his dying screams in her head.

She wondered if she should leave.

She thought about walking away, even as she laughed along with what Rose said, and encouraged a story about the Doctor falling off a ladder in the upper stories, tumbling into a time loop, and then continuing to fall for hours until Rose could figure out how to help him. She laughed, and she appreciated the warmth that permeated Rose, but she was always aware of the fiery cloud across the table. He watched her. He was thinking about something serious.

Grace was thinking about walking away.

If her nightmare was not just a nightmare, but a glimpse into the future, she was going to come to a point where she wanted to hurt him. She was going to turn him into dust. He was going to beg for his life, and she was going to kill him.

But if it was just a dream, just something scary her head cooked up, she would miss out. She would miss him. She would never survive it, and the longer she spent with him, the less she wanted to be separated from him.

She waited until Rose had come to the end of the story, and then excused herself, claiming she was hungry. She left the library and rushed down the hallway, making a decision on the run. If she was going to go, she had to do it now, or she would never work up the nerve.

But then his voice came.

"Grace!"

She turned, and, again, before she could greet him, he was already upon her. He hugged her again, and held on a bit longer this time, like the greeting in the library had not been enough. Everything she had been thinking fizzled and died. She wanted this. Friendship. To have someone so worried about her, to have them throw their arms around her and just hold on for dear life. With him, it seemed like it was meant to be. It was so easy. It happened so fast. How long had she known him? Less than a week? And yet he was already the closest person to her heart.

When he pulled away, he placed his hands gently on either side of her head again, his eyes intense. "You showed me things I never thought I would see again. Let me return the favor."

She had no time to ask what he meant.

Suddenly she was home again, but not in the upper class, suburban place with her mother and step-father, and tons of little children. She was in the middle level of the Dome, in their little living room, with her feet across her father's lap. He was shouting at the television. Dalton was on the floor trying to assemble a small engine. She was a little girl again and the world was as it should be, as it should have been.

Grace came back into the present and found a pair of warm brown eyes in front of her, staring into her, waiting. He ran his thumbs under her eyes, catching tears.

She could barely speak. "My dad… Dalton…"

"I know those memories are getting further away. I want you to keep that one."

She hugged him again, holding on for a while to shake away the pain. He rocked her gently side to side until the loss was gone, and all that remained was the love in that memory. It was one of the last days she spent with her father before he went missing.

As she stood there she realized she could never leave him. She loved him. He was so warm inside and outside. He was the very best that sentience had to offer. He had become the center of her life somehow. And being so close to him she could not help but feel what he was feeling. Bubbly affection. Great ocean waves of contentment. What that what love felt like? Was that was friendship felt like? It was so strange from the other side. If he could have looked into her at that moment, like she did to him, would he have felt the same thing? Was she capable of it?

She realized she would die before she let that dream come true.

And in all of this seriousness, in this impossibly intimate moment, something occurred to Grace. She put her hands over his. "You should get another squid."

The Doctor frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Your squid is lonely. You need another one."

He laughed. It was a beautiful sound. "You are an odd girl."


	47. Rush

**Chapter 47.**

 **Rush.**

His console whirred, piquing his interest. He was on the way to pick up Rose and Grace, having left them a few days ago to do a little resting up after the events with the black hole and the Beast. He had to do a little thinking himself, too, having uncovered some troubling information about the Lightbringers – the species Grace belonged to. But a few days left him longing to have his girls back. He had no one to talk to, no one to educate.

But something was wrong in London, or around it. His scanner picked up a distinct alien lifeform. Hoix. Hulking, ravenous, and moody. He had not seen one in a while. They weren't the smartest creatures, but having one blundering about in London was a problem.

He parked in the living room, and before he got to the door, he could hear Jackie groan.

"Sorry," he said, coming out with a smile. "In and out in a pinch, I promise. Where are the girls?"

Jackie was lounging on the couch. She motioned back to the hall. "Sleeping the day away. You better move that thing before my show comes back on."

"Yes, ma'am." He stepped into the hall, tapping on Rose's door.

Her voice came back a little dreary. "Doctor?"

"That's me."

"It's seven in the morning!"

"Come on. There's a Hoix somewhere in the city. Is Grace in there?"

He heard a thud. Someone groaned.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Grace opened the door. She was on her knees, and she sat back on her haunches as it swung open. She had a red spot on her forehead. Rose was curled up in bed, looking guilty. Neither of them looked particularly prepared to hunt down a Hoix.

"Get up. Come on. Get dressed." He spun his hand. "What's all this, then?" There were empty boxes on the ground, missing a few chocolates each.

Rose groaned, stretched, and buried her head in the covers. "We were sampling."

"What's a Hoix?" Grace asked.

"Big, toothy, always hungry. Lives for food. Get up." He helped her up. "Come on. Atta girl."

Grace staggered upright, turning and leaning into him. She pointed at Rose. "You, come on. Your turn. Uh, where's the bathroom again?"

"Not a big flat, she's asked that twelve times since Friday," Rose said. "In the hall."

Grace slid past him, giving a wink, and disappeared behind another door. He went in to sit on the edge of the bed, kicking a few boxes out of the way. "So…"

Rose smiled, sitting up beside him. "So…? Where is this alien you want us to wrangle?"

"You're not going to tell me what you two got up to?"

She shrugged, nudging his shoulder. "Nah. Just girl stuff. Boring. Plenty boring."

"Tearing up my house is what they got up to," Jackie appeared in the doorway. "Look at this room! I spent most of the night just keeping those two from running around in the street!"

Rose cleared her throat. "We got a little… out of hand."

Grace popped up behind Jackie and smiled. "Best night ever. We going or what?"

Jackie actually smiled at her. The Doctor frowned. It had taken him ages to work up to a smile, and most of the time it was just her tolerating him.

"Might want to change first," Rose suggested.

"Right." Grace spun, pointing down the hall. "TARDIS. Living room?"

The Doctor nodded and she ran off looking for it.

Jackie scratched her head. "She's an odd girl, itn't she?"

"Everybody out so I can change." Rose nudged him off the bed, lying back into the covers.

The Doctor followed Jackie back into the living room. The TARDIS doors remained open, showing the extensive inside, and Jackie gave a little look, snorting. The Doctor ignored it, stepping in. He found a line of clothes that Grace had stripped on her way through and gathered them as he went. He could hear her singing jazz through the hallways.

Rose came in after a few minutes, fluffing her hair up with both hands. She stretched her way around the console and flopped into a seat. "Sorry. Having a hard time with the get-up-and-go today."

"Big night. Wish I was invited." The Doctor closed the doors and set the TARDIS to pursue the Hoix, but kept it stationary for another moment. "I wonder what you two could possibly have to talk about for two days."

Rose raised both eyebrows, ticking her tongue at him. "Oh, I see what this is. You think we sat 'round talking 'bout you all day, huh?"

Oh, he hoped not.

"No, I just wonder, since you two are so different…"

"We're not that different, though. Not really. Same age. So what if she likes science and all that? Wait, are you saying that I'm stupid? Is that what you mean?"

He had just sashayed right into that. "No, I just meant-"

"He meant it!" Grace sprinted out from the hall, stopping short at the console. She was certainly awake now, and a wildcard. "Come on! Hoix awaits!"

The Doctor looked between them, wondering about the knowing look they shared. "You two… I'm starting to worry about you two."

"Whatever for?" Rose wondered.

Grace went to sit beside Rose, and the pair of them looked a bit suspicious.

The Doctor shrugged it off and set the TARDIS moving. "I've locked onto the Hoix. We should land somewhere nearby. Just hang on in here 'till I get back."

"Where are you going?"

"Kitchen." He departed down the hall, shouting over his shoulder, "Nothing attracts a Hoix like a piece of raw meat! I think I've got a pork chop!"

"Why have you got a pork chop?" Rose asked.

He didn't answer her. He was too far away already.

Hoix were known for the affinity for eating almost everything they could fit in their mouths, aside from a few specific substances they should rightly avoid – those things that caused their cells to break down on the surface and gave them nasty burns. He retrieved a raw pork chop from the freezer, tucked it in a bag in his coat, and had the formula going through his head as he walked back to the console.

And the room was empty.

"You better not have…" he said to himself, pushing the doors open. They had landed in a dry stretch of land beside a barren field, with storage containers leading into a large, abandoned factory. It seemed like an odd place to put a Hoix.

Rose and Grace were already halfway to the building.

"Oi!" He chased after them, coming up between them and nudging them both on the shoulder. "I told you to wait!"

Grace motioned to the building. "We were doing recon."

"Very proactive, us," Rose added.

The Doctor kept an eye out as they made their way into the factory. Wide, open hallways, metal arches, and a few narrow doorways made up the main floor. He ducked into a supply room, dragging the girls with him.

He threw together a mixture from the cleaning supplies, coming up with the right compound. "If it turns out to be a female, we need the blue bucket. Male, red bucket."

"Why do they have different buckets?" Grace dipped her finger in one, frowning.

Rose was right beside her. "Seems overcomplicated."

"I'll call the gender when I see it, so whoever makes it back here the quickest gets the right bucket, okay?" The Doctor stepped into the doorway, looking out. He could hear it growling. "Not gonna be a long search. Grace, can you feel it?"

She paused, and frowned. "No. Nothing. Just you two."

"Well, search is on then." He smiled. This was his favorite part. "Split up. Don't let it bite you. Remember the buckets!"

His group had already fractured. The Doctor walked off on his own, wondering, again, what a Hoix might find interesting in a place like this. It must have been very lost to end up here.

Grace appeared from behind a door and took his hand, smiling, and then tugging him back through with her. "I found it. Shh. Stop stomping."

She led him to a hall with multiple doors, like a little wedge of a beehive. The Hoix was standing around in front of one of them, looking curiously for its next meal. It was male. The Doctor crept backwards, indicating to Grace that she should stay there. He whispered into the hall. "Male!"

Rose whispered back. "I've got the blue bucket!"

"Not the blue bucket!" He heard a growl, and Grace squealed. He had no time to correct Rose. He ran back to where he had been and found the Hoix stepping through the doorway. Grace was shaking her head, claiming innocence.

There was someone else in the factory.

He was on the other side of the doorway, and the Hoix was advancing.

The Doctor grabbed his pork chop, unwrapped it, and hung in the door.

"Here, boy! Eat the food. Come on." He dangled the pork chop, and got a look at the young man standing, shocked, beyond the doorway. "Look at the lovely food, isn't that nice? Isn't it? Yes, it is!" He glanced at the man, keeping his voice calm. "Get out of here, quickly."

The man made a move to leave, but stayed right where he was.

The Doctor went on, regaining the creature's attention. "That's a boy! Who'd like a porky choppy, then?" He let his voice raise this time. "I said _run_!"

Finally, the man grasped the gravity of the situation. He turned and ran, and as he reached the end of the hallway Rose came around, screaming at the top of her lungs, with the blue bucket in her hands. She doused the alien.

The Doctor threw up his hand. "Wrong one! You made it worse!"

"You said blue!" Rose declared.

"I said _not_ blue!"

Now the creature was furious. Rose took off down the hall and it pursued her. The Doctor slammed the door shut and tried to turn and tell Grace to go for the other bucket, but she was already going after Rose. He went to intercept them.

The Doctor ended up behind the creature, and when it noticed him chasing it, it whipped around and came after him. He ran back the way he'd come, screaming.

Rose blew past him, and Grace ran into him. The creature pursued Rose again. Grace broke away from the Doctor and took another hall, looping around, and he paused to try and get his bearings. In the center hallway, Rose and Grace came out of two opposite doors and crashed into one another, and the creature came down from the end. It was closing in on them.

The Doctor flung the pork chop, whacking it in the head, and it turned on him and growled. Grace tossed a brick at it and fled into another doorway, and it pursued her. Rose went the other way.

The Doctor would have followed one of them, but he got stuck on the man standing witness to all of this. He was still there at the end of the hall, watching their almost comical escape with wide eyes. And it struck him. He looked familiar.

"Hold on." He approached, digging in his brain for an answer to this puzzle. "Don't I know you?"

The man turned and ran down the stairs.

Grace popped out again, screaming, and shoved him into another hallway. They went down a slope and into a storage area, past the closet. Grace stopped suddenly, hitting her hands and knees, and the creature hit her so hard that he sent her rolling. He tumbled head-over-feet, and Rose popped out of the closet with the red bucket. She doused the Hoix, and it stumbled around, its flesh singing, until it fell unconscious to the ground.

It would come out alright, but for the moment it was neutralized.

The Doctor went to help Grace up. All three of them were panting. She was laughing and holding her ribs. Rose leaned over her knees.

"You okay? Everyone okay?" The Doctor gasped. "Right. Come on. Help me drag him. Gotta take him home and get him acclimated and what not."

Grace coughed, her voice a little raspy, "That'll wake you up in the morning!"

Rose started giggling. "That was actually fun."

"Not for the Hoix," the Doctor pointed out.

"Who was that guy? He was almost alien food." Grace looked around, her eyes narrowing. "I can still feel him. Petrified. He was excited, though."

"Excited to see that thing?" Rose demanded.

"No…" Grace looked at the Doctor strangely. "When you came out…"

"Excited to see me? What for?"

"I don't know, Doctor, let me rewind time and go and ask him before the Hoix eats us all." Grace whacked him in the shoulder as she passed. She grabbed the creature by one arm. "I get excited when I see you, too. You're just so darn cute."

He ruffled his collar a little, nodding. "I agree completely."

"Did you know him? Sounded like you knew him."

He shrugged. "He looked familiar, but then again I've seen so many faces…" He grabbed the other arm. Rose took one of the legs, and they dragged the beast back into the TARDIS. "Sometimes people try to track me down, try to explain seeing me."

"I met a guy like that once, bit of a nutter." Rose grunted as she got the hips up over the threshold. "He thought the Doctor was a harbinger of death or something."

He had heard that one before. It made him cringe.

Grace shut the doors, leaning against them. She debated for a moment, and while she stood there the Doctor realized her tank top had a hole in it, right over the stomach where she had been hit. It would probably make a decent bruise.

"I think we should look into that guy."

"What for?" Rose took a seat, and then changed her mind. "Oh, right. I see."

"See what?" The Doctor took a walk around the console, setting it up to take the Hoix home.

"If someone's interested in you, that means trouble," Rose nodded grimly.

"Maybe he just thinks I'm dashing."

Rose snorted.

Grace cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah. Dashing. Right."

"You said it yourself."

"I said you were cute. Big difference. Cute can be that congested little dog. Oh, it's so cute it can hardly breathe look at it bouncing around, poor little thing."

"Did you just…? Did you just compare me to a congested dog?"

"Dogs don't knock on the door at the crack of dawn," Rose commented.

He laughed. He was never going to get anywhere with these two. "Fine. I was going to suggest we look into it anyway, just for the record. Don't sit around thinking this was all your plan."

"Now he's vain, too. Look at that."

He groaned. It was going to be a long day.


	48. Almost

**Chapter 48.**

 **Almost.**

The Hoix home planet was biologically fascinating. Everything there was sharp. Sharp plants. Sharp fangs on sharp-spined monsters. Sharp grass. No wonder the poor things had evolved with mouths like that, and big, durable bodies practically made of muscle. No wonder the Doctor had chosen to put it out with a chemical, rather than actually try to attack it. Even the rocks were sharp on this planet – especially the ones that seemed flat. Grace knew because she was specifically forbidden to lick one by the Doctor, and she did it anyway, and got a nice cut on her tongue, which he claimed would have poisoned and killed a human. She thought he was just being dramatic.

She would have never agreed to leave the planet if not for the flaming spears being lugged their way. It was her first real, proper, life-form having alien planet, and she only got to look at it for thirty seconds while the Doctor and Rose dragged the Hoix out into the grass.

He promised her something better as he slammed the TARDIS doors. Grace joined him at the controls and mindlessly flipped switches as he tried to pilot it, frustrating him.

"I would ask you to sit down, but I'm beginning to think you're incapable."

She turned another switch, and the TARDIS heaved. The Doctor gave her a stern eyebrow and she sulked. "Can we go back there one day?"

He looked at her like she was stupid. "With the flaming spears and the toxic rocks?"

"Yeah."

He shrugged. "Sure. Just not today."

Rose laughed. "Trust me, there are plenty less hostile alien planets for us to visit. I can think of some you would love. Oh, Doctor, you should take her to the Morning Waterfall! Only maybe in the morning this time, and without the giant bees."

The Doctor scratched his head. "That was a bit of a disaster, eh?"

Grace noted how she said it, excluding herself from the invite. She looked at her, but Rose returned an innocent shrug. She would have asked her, but her phone rang.

She answered happily. "Hi, mum! Miss me already?"

Rose frowned. She shifted rapidly from amusement to anger, alarming Grace. Not good news. Certainly not good news. The Doctor turned his focus on her, too, giving that very serious expression and leaning against the console. Both remained silent.

It seemed like they were on the phone for hours. Rose nodded, and gave little affirmations that she was listening, and gnawed on her thumb nail. Grace had only known Jackie for a short period, but she liked her – she was fierce. She also had an opinion or two about the Doctor. Grace had drunkenly professed her love for Rose and the Doctor, and Jackie had admitted to trying to seduce him the first night they met. They had all laughed so hard that her stomach still hurt. She needed to know what was going on, to know if she needed to protect her newly recruited friend.

Rose finally hung up, and shook her head to dispel some of her frustration. "How many days has it been since we were at my house, Doctor?"

"I dunno, a few." He looked sheepish. "Did I overshoot it again?"

"No, no. He's been around my house. That man we saw. Mum thought he liked her, but he was looking for us. He had a picture of me, with the TARDIS in it."

The Doctor stood straight, frowning. "Is Jackie alright?"

"She's fine. She found him out and sent him on his way. But she's all torn up about it."

Grace went to sit with Rose. "Do you know where he is?"

"She found an address in his pocket. Some old-style apartment or something downtown. I figure we should go and have a talk with him." She handed her phone to the Doctor. "There."

Grace nodded. "I agree. A long talk."

The Doctor gave her a hard look. " _Grace_."

She looked away, shrugging to herself and grumbling, "Just wanted to talk to him."

"Did you want to talk to him, or hurt him?"

"Both, probably."

"How 'bout neither?"

"How 'bout we just go?" Rose sat up, frowning at him and taking her phone back. "Get us there. I can deal with him. Just let me handle it."

The Doctor continued watching Grace for several seconds, and then he went to the console and put in whatever information he needed. She could never figure out what he was doing with those stupid dials. She kept her arms crossed, looking away, until the engine stopped wheezing.

She rushed out first, ahead of the Doctor, and heard an "Oi!" behind her as she pushed through the TARDIS doors. But it was not the blonde man from the factory she saw.

It was another alien.

He was a humanoid, but his skin was a sick yellow-green color, his flesh heaving over in rolls with boils, his face odd and predatory, his hands cloven. He wielded a cane with a silver set of hands clasped together at the end, and he stood over the man from the factory, his hand hovering.

But his presence was not the most concerning thing for her. He felt malicious inside, certainly, but there were other emotions floating in the air, coming from him. Suffering. Darkness. Fear. Confusion. Regret. Grace was horrified when he turned fully toward her and revealed several human faces settled in his fleshy body, alert and awake. And afraid. It was like had swallowed them whole. Their pain kept her frozen to the spot.

The Doctor came out behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder. He barely looked at the monster, and spoke instead to the blonde man. "Someone wants to have a word with you."

Rose was out last. Her voice was sharp. "You upset my mum!"

The man looked incredulous. His eyes journeyed from the alien to the three of them. "A great big absorbing creature from outer space and you're having a go at me?"

He had _absorbed_ them. No wonder they were so terrified. Grace was glad the Doctor had a hand on her, because if she had not been touching him, she might have gone after this alien. She knew what his victims felt, and it was awful. She wanted him gone. But not with the Doctor so close, not when he was within striking distance.

Rose crossed her arms. "No one upsets my mum."

The creature spoke. "At last. The greatest feast of all, the Doctor."

The Doctor squeezed Grace's shoulder, and she felt his mind activate. Curiosity. Determination. Coldness. He had also noticed the faces. "Interesting. A sort of absorbatrix… Absorbaklon… Abzorbaloff…"

The monster put one cloven hand up. "Abzorbaloff, yes!"

Rose leaned in and whispered, "Is it me, or is he a bit Slitheen?"

"What is that?" Grace wondered.

"Long story." The Doctor surveyed the monster. "Not from Rexicoricophalvitorius, are you?"

"No! I'm not that swine! I spit on them! I was born on their twin planet!"

"Really?" The Doctor frowned. "What's the twin planet of Rexicoricophalvitorius?"

"Clom."

"Clom?"

"Clom. Yes, and I'll return there victorious once I possess your traveling machine."

So that was what this was about. Had he somehow recruited that poor sap to track down the Doctor? It was a dumb goal. Grace had a feeling the TARDIS would reject a creature like that in a heartbeat, and the Doctor would never let anyone else drive it. Sometimes she was surprised he let her and Rose live in it.

The Doctor was confident, almost amused. "Well, that's never gonna happen."

"Oh, it will," the monster insisted. "You'll surrender yourself to me, Doctor, or this one dies. You see, I've read about you, Doctor. I've studied you. So passionate. So sweet. You wouldn't let an innocent man die. And I'll absorb him unless you give yourself to me."

He _was_ passionate, and he _was_ sweet. Would he really give himself up to that thing just to save this man they had never met? Grace moved, intending to figure out if this thing could try and absorb her like it did the people stuck in its body. She had a feeling it wouldn't work. The presence made her confident. It was poised inside, ready to attack.

But the Doctor put his hand up in front of her, completely unbothered. He scratched his head. "Sweet, maybe. Passionate, I suppose. But don't ever mistake that for nice." He turned toward the TARDIS. "Do what you want."

The monster experienced a distinct flash of worry. "He'll die, Doctor!"

"Go on, then." The Doctor raised his eyebrows, defiant.

The monster looked baffled. "So be it." He reached for the man.

The Doctor interjected, "Mind you, the others might have something to say."

"Others?"

A voice came from its torso. One of the faces. "He's right! The Doctor's right! We can't let him!"

And then something terrible happened. Grace stepped closer to the Doctor as the faces on the creature's body began thrusting away from him, distorting his torso and making him scream. Now she felt them much more strongly – they had a spirit in them, each of them, a determination to take down the creature that had consumed them.

In the chaos, the monster dropped his cane, and someone shouted to break it. The blonde man lunged for it and snapped it in half. A light came from the top and dissipated into the air.

The monster dissolved into an ugly green puddle, and began soaking into the ground.

"What did I do?" the blonde man asked.

The Doctor was grim. "The cane created a limitation field. Now that it's broken, he can't stop. The absorber is being absorbed."

"By what?"

"By the Earth."

One of the squares of concrete bubbled into a face, and a female voice came, "Bye-bye, Elton." It slowly drifted down, becoming solid again. "Bye-bye."

Oh, the face was heartbroken. Just heartbroken. And so was the blonde man, Elton. Slowly, the other minds faded, and his remained, all alone in the world. Grace saw flashes as the pain stabbed him. Whoever that woman was, she was important to him. She was almost… _almost_ …

The Doctor touched her shoulder again, urging her back to the TARDIS. "Get inside. I have something else to tell him, and you don't need to feel it."

She almost refused, because of curiosity alone, but he was serious. It had to be something bad, to make his face look like that. She glanced back at Rose, and then entered the TARDIS. His hand brushed hers as she departed, and she felt a flash of his emotions more strongly when their skin touched – now there was guilt, and regret. She wondered if he was really protecting her, or if he just didn't want her to know something he had done.

She went to her room and pulled the dark horse out of her pocket, setting it back on its shelf. When they left, she took it with her. Right now she didn't want to be near it. It brought up its own feelings.

Grace settled into her recliner, toying with the controls, folding a candy wrapper a hundred different ways, until sleep overtook her. She had barely slept the night before – she had too much fun with Rose to really think of sleep. Playing cards, board games, little puzzles. Rose and Jackie introduced her to things she had never imagined. Family things. But now it was quiet, and she was alone, and the only feelings came from the TARDIS – those were celestial, impossible to read. But soothing, just like the Doctor.

She dreamt the same memory over again – her father giving her the horse, and singing to her, and telling her he would return.

But it was barely a dream. It was just the edge. The Doctor ran his hand over her arm and woke her. Somehow the room had gotten dark. He was crouched beside the arm of the chair, and he smiled the moment she opened her eyes.

"We need to work on controlling your abilities."

Grace thought of the obliterated guards, and flinched.

He frowned, taking it the wrong way. "If you want to, that is. I just don't want you to experience everyone else's pain along with your own. It just looks… exhausting."

Grace shifted closer to him. "Is it possible… to control it?"

"The mind is a muscle. You just have to learn how to flex it without flailing around."

She smiled. "You lied to that monster."

"I know."

"You _are_ nice."

"I know."

Grace nodded, affirming that. She reached over to fluff up his hair. "So, where are we off to next?"

"Well, Rose is asleep, and you look about halfway there, so nowhere right now. But I thought we might go see a very special festival in the Uncin Galaxy. I never got a chance to go before and there's plenty of wildlife, so _you'll_ be thrilled."

"What kind of festival?"

The Doctor stood up, taking a seat on her bed. "Harvest moon, blood-god, big orange cat, something or another. But it'll be magnificent, I promise." He held out his hand. "Come on. You can't sleep in that, you'll wake up grumpy."

"I always wake up grumpy. It's my specialty."

She got up, going around the Doctor and climbing into the middle of the bed, with her face in the pillow. She spoke through it. "How often does that happen to you?"

"What?"

Grace rolled on her side, propping her head on her elbow. "How often do you just… stumble into someone else's life? I mean we obviously missed a lot today. All those people, that monster."

"Oh, almost always. It's my specialty."

She smiled. "Are you going to sleep?"

"I don't really need sleep. Not much, anyway." He flopped backward, stretching across her bed like he owned it, and then he mimicked her position. "I 'spose I'll just… do some sorting in the library, maybe go looking for a girlfriend for Roy."

"Roy?"

"Roy is the squid."

"Why don't you release him into the wild?"

"He's disabled. He lost a tentacle and he doesn't swim so well. I saved him from a nasty predator a long time ago, and he just sort of… lives in the pool. I tried to get him to a squid rehab, I swear, but he just loves that pool so much, and you try moving a colossal squid when he doesn't wanna go. It's like talking to a wall."

Grace liked listening to him talk, but there was something else she wanted to hear. She scooted closer and put her hand over his chest, where there were two hearts beating. He watched her closely, stiffening a little at the touch, and his hearts quickened. "I heard it before, and I heard Rose mention it last night I think, but I never just… it's amazing. Biologically."

The Doctor shifted onto his back, and Grace settled in the crook of his arm, resting her head right over his hearts. She heard the echo of his voice in his chest as he spoke.

"Rose was right, you know."

"What about?"

He sighed, and ran his finger down the back of her head, to her shoulder, and down her spine. It made her shiver. "She mentioned the Morning Waterfall. You would like it. It's on a mountain, on a planet called Morning, way out in the wilds, away from everything. When we went it was the middle of the night and there was a nasty bee infestation… I walked away with four stings. But in the morning… in the morning it looks like…"

Grace folded one arm on his chest, propping herself up, and placed her hand on his cheek. His eyes were hooded. He was still watching her, still lost in his thoughts. "Is it okay if I…?"

He nodded.

Grace shut her eyes and tried to picture a waterfall in the mountains, tried to sample it from his memory, but she was too tired to be any good. She laughed, letting her head drop to his chest. "Never mind. I suck."

The Doctor chuckled. "I could show it to you."

"Right now?"

"If you want, I mean, it doesn't have to be now."

Grace got up on her knees. "Do you want me to wake Rose?"

"No, let her sleep. Come on. I promise, you'll never forget it."


	49. Morning

**Chapter 49.**

 **Morning.**

Grace waited at the doors, her hands on the wood. She really wanted to open then, but something was holding her back. It seemed their lives were stuffed to the brim with danger and chaos, and she loved it, honestly, but this time it was something else. She felt it in the Doctor. He had a lot on his mind. His ball of fire, that constant hum of emotions hovering around him, was severely diminished, like he was hiding himself. He knew she could feel it and he was keeping it from her. She felt that, on the other side of those doors, he might reveal whatever it was.

Was she ready for that?

Grace turned, leaning against the doors. The Doctor stood patiently behind her, curious about her pause, but willing to wait.

She flashed a smile, and then escaped into the morning light.

It was stunning. It really was.

It was a world that seemed to be made of hues of gold and brown. Grace stepped into a meadow at the foot of a magnificent waterfall – the sound of it was like a music she would never forget. Up above the sun was peeking through golden clouds, sending pale rays onto the flowers and the clovers and the writhing grasses. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, like a painting, or a dream, only real. Very real. She could feel the grass on her legs. She could feel the sun on her face. Her exhaustion was temporarily forgotten as she marveled at it.

The Doctor came out beside her, smiling at the view. "Welcome to Morning. No sentient lifeforms to speak of. Inhabited solely by mammalian archetype lifeforms. Popular for tourism, but, so far, perfectly unspoiled. What do you think?"

Grace shook her head. "There are no words…"

"I thought you would like it." He smiled, taking her hand and walking her along the edge of the river, away from the waterfall. "Pretty, but loud."

Grace looked back as they walked, following the golden rocks all the way to the top, where the water sparkled as it came over the edge. She suddenly felt extraordinarily lucky to be able to see things like this, to have the privilege to walk with him. She squeezed his hand. "I never said thank you for bringing me along. So thank you. I mean that."

The Doctor nodded, allowing her to see only his tranquility. She wondered what might be hidden underneath, but didn't dare try to look. Sometimes he liked it, but sometimes he hated it.

Her mind ran away from her.

"At first I kept thinking, you know, that this was all a dream. Big old dream. I thought, I'll wake up at home and everything will be the same. But now… home is more like a dream. Home is like… like my other home, in the wrong timeline, you know? Before I fixed it? Home is like that now, and _that_ , well, I can barely even touch it."

The Doctor hummed his agreement.

"And I like it. Being out here with you. Going on adventures."

He nodded again, not looking up from his path.

"And you know I never really got close to people before you guys. I never had friends. But now I have Rose, and Jackie… and you. And all of you just… you're great."

She was starting to sound a little insane. The Doctor didn't seem to notice. He walked on, intent on where he was going, while she wandered away from all that was reasonable. She wanted him to understand how she felt about this new life of hers, how much she loved Rose, and how much she loved him. But it seemed so strange to try and vocalize, and yet it felt necessary. What if something else happened, and one of them was lost, and they never understood how much they meant to her?

He paused beside the river, finally meeting her eyes, and reacted very little to what she said. "Do you want to know what I found out about the Lightbringers?"

Grace froze. Everything froze. Her confessions died in the air.

"What?"

It was not so much a question as it was an exclamation.

The Doctor's eyes darkened and he grew more serious. "I did some reading while you were napping, looked into some of my oldest texts for mentions of the Lightbringers. I found out some troubling things… I wanted to tell you, in the interest of transparency."

"W-W-What do you mean?"

"I never want to lie to you. I want you to trust me, Grace, and that comes from honesty." He cleared his throat, glancing at the water, but looked into her eyes to tell her, to persuade her of his honesty. "The Lightbringers – your people – were wiped out by my people. A very long time ago there was a war, and the Time Lords were victorious. You might be the last Lightbringer."

Grace already knew that. She had been told of the wars by the Curator. She had already thought about the implications of this news – she had already battled with herself in her dreams about it. She tried to give the proper amount of surprise and disgust at this revelation.

The Doctor was sincere. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. It was before my time."

"Why are you sorry, then?"

"I may not have had a hand in it, personally, but I was born into that race – into the one that was responsible for the destruction of your people, and I know what that feels like."

"I don't blame you."

He swallowed, nodding, and then scratched his head. "And there was something else. I found records of the Lightbringers – kings and warriors, mostly – and put together a timeline for a few of them. I wanted to map out their abilities and work up a lifespan but… none of them died of old age. I swear, they were fossils by the time someone actually killed them – some thousands of years old, some tens of thousands."

Grace blinked. "But that's impossible."

"Some species have enormous lifespans, I just never-"

"No, Doctor, that is literally impossible. You can't just… your cells can't just… your organs would… it's just not…"

"But it is. If they were anything like the Time Lords, which I found that they were, they have incredible longevity – but it was never written. We kept our secrets, and they kept theirs." He watched her, waiting, and when she said nothing he went on, in a gentler tone. "I just want you to understand that you might stop aging at some point, and remain that way, potentially forever."

Grace stepped back from him, shaking those words off. "I don't believe you."

"You don't have to. But you will one day." He held out his hand. "Come with me."

"What are we even doing out here?"

He took her hand, smiling, and continued along the river. She would have questioned him, wondering if he was leading her to a cliff so he could chuck her off, but there was a clearing coming up, right beside the river.

In the clearing, the grass was flattened in a circle, with a ring of regal stone benches going all the way around. Huge flat stepping stones led into the middle, where a boulder stood, with fuzzy symbols written all over it. Grace let go of the Doctor and strayed into the clearing, jumping between the stepping stones, drawn to the rock in the middle. She could almost make out what it said. When she got close enough, the words were clear.

"Shaped by Mitri the Unrelenting."

She read bits and pieces of the rest. It was some sort of decree, describing the planet and its inhabitants and the 'components' that had been put into making it.

The Doctor arrived beside her. "I always wondered what it said. I suppose that means a bloke named Mitri created this planet."

"Created it…?"

"Lightbringers were the crafters of the universe, or at least that was how they saw themselves."

The Curator's words came to mind.

 _For millions, perhaps billions, of years, the Lightbringers, the Shapers among them, breathed life into the universe, planting the seeds – according to legend – for no less than a million species._

Grace ran her hands over the stone, crouching down beside it and pressing her ear to its side. It was warm. It had a humming deep inside. It felt like something she had touched before.

"Don't you dare lick that."

Grace ran her tongue over the surface, drawing the taste of earth from the stone. Suddenly the presence was wide awake inside, and the deep veins within her hand began to pulse, showing through the skin even in broad daylight.

"Fascinating." The Doctor crouched in front of her, holding out his hand. "May I?"

Grace was cautious, because her powers seemed to come from her hands, but she slipped it into his anyway. He turned it, running his fingers over her palm, the green glow reflected in his eyes. Being so close she couldn't help but feel his enthusiasm bubbling up inside.

When the glowing faded, Grace stood up and walked around the rock. It was certainly a part of her, somehow. The presence was attracted to it. It made her feel powerful. But why?

"It may be part of your home planet," the Doctor observed, answering her thoughts. "Some sort of… mineral that activates your abilities."

She shrugged, making it back around to him. It was too big to carry, and too hard to chip a piece off of. She was getting tired again, and the more they talked about the Lightbringers, the more she had to lie to the Doctor – so she left the topic altogether. She went back to the riverside and skipped a rock straight across, crouching with her toes in the mud.

The Doctor joined her, his hands in his pockets. He twirled a little.

"I never get this close."

She looked up when he spoke, and found him watching her. "What?"

"I never get this close to people. Not _this_ close. It never happens. I don't let it happen. After the War I just never wanted… But I let it happen with Rose, and now…" He sighed, and then groaned. "It's never simple, is it?"

"You do realize you're babbling, right?"

He scoffed. "No worse than you!"

She smiled, glad to find his sense of humor in his distress. "So we both suck at this."

"No! No. I happen to be very good at this."

"Oh, really?"

"Really."

"Okay. I believe you."

"No, you're patronizing me."

"I would _never_ do that."

He smiled, and drew her up by one hand. "I want you to stay with me, in the TARDIS. Travel with us. I realized I never asked, and I just don't want you to… wander off."

Grace was relieved. If that was the most serious thing he had to say to her, she had been afraid for no reason. Of course she was going to stay. Why would he doubt that? Grace realized she was not as good at reading him as she thought she was. Perhaps what she saw as suspicion had really be doubt, and uncertainty. Maybe he wondered if he had really found another friend, or just someone passing through. She wondered about it, too.

And it still seemed like a dream, like this couldn't possibly be real.

But she laughed anyway. "Of course I'm staying."

The Doctor beamed. "Well, then. We should be getting back. You look exhausted."

"Hold on, hold on." Grace glanced around them. "I believe I was promised giant bees."

"It was more of a warning than a promise." He considered her for a moment, and then laughed, and took her hand again. "Giant bees it is. Sleep be damned."

For a few hours – and with the last bit of energy Grace had left – they wandered the dreamlike forests of Morning looking for giant bees. Grace climbed every tree she could find, ignoring the protests of her companion, and looked out over the horizon. As she grew more exhausted, the rolling hills blurred, and her grip weakened. She was grounded, and then dragging along, and then yawning in the middle of every sentence. But there was so much to see on Morning. She never wanted to leave.

The Doctor had his arm around her shoulder, as much keeping her standing as he was keeping her from running off. "Come on. You're dead on your feet."

"We haven't seen everything-" _Yawn_. "Yet."

"You want to see the whole planet? All of it? Every bit?" The Doctor walked her back to the TARDIS, and ushered her inside. "Believe me, you'll see more. You'll see things you could never imagine. And you'll see them every day, and in every way, and you'll live in the moment without the fear of missing out. But right now you need to sleep."

She groaned.

Rose came into the console room, a blanket draped around her shoulders. She looked rough and tired. "Where've you two been?"

"Big planet. Lots of flowers." Grace went to her, taking over the right side of her blanket. "Can you take me to my room? If I get lost, I might just sleep in the hallway, and that kills my back."

Rose cocked an eyebrow at the Doctor, but turned and led Grace down the hall.

The Doctor called after them. "Goodnight! You two have gotta leave me alone for at least 12 hours, by the way. Everybody needs a break every now and then."

"Don't listen to him," Rose said. "He'll get bored in twenty minutes."

Grace yawned, and smiled, forgetting all she was missing on that beautiful planet. It was just as great being here with Rose, and listening to her and the Doctor bicker back and forth about his attention span. She was delivered to her room, and she flopped onto her bed and wrapped herself in the blankets, her troubles completely slipping her mind.

The soothing presence of the TARDIS, the very soul in the machine she was curled up inside, wreathed around her, suppressing her fears, her uncertainties. She was going to stay here with the Doctor and Rose. She was going to explore the universe. What she had done didn't matter – it was over now. She couldn't take it back. The Doctor wanted her here, and she was staying.


End file.
